Crew Begins Sealing Goo at Playground

Work has begun on a $1.5-million project to contain the sticky petroleum goo that has seeped to the surface of the blacktop playground at Park Avenue Elementary School every summer for more than 20 years and that last year forced its closure.

Los Angeles Unified School District officials have ordered crews to work through the weekends if necessary to ensure that the school is reopened by Oct. 12.

Last week, workers wearing dust masks, gloves and protective clothing began removing strips of the playground’s asphalt top and digging trenches in the first step of a project that will seal the petroleum waste deposits beneath the playground and away from students, district officials said.

As workers excavated a trench around the playground, gooey pockets of the petroleum-based chemical compounds were uncovered along the back fence of the school. Angelo Bellomo, director of the environmental engineering firm hired by the district to clean up the petroleum waste, said that the air quality at the school is being monitored constantly in case there is an emission of hazardous vapors. He said, however, that tests have shown there is no trace of health-threatening vapors at the site.

Bellomo said his firm, McLaren of Burbank, will install the pipes of a gas ventilation system in 20 two-foot-deep trenches that will traverse the width of the playground. A thick plastic liner will be placed over the ground to keep seepage from reaching the surface, and the liner will be covered with about six inches of gravel and sand, he said. A four-inch asphalt surface will be laid on top.

District officials earlier this year decided to cover the playground to block the rise of the petroleum chemical sludge instead of excavating the entire playground--an option that would have cost more than $5 million and have taken more time.

Although district officials consider the liner and venting system a temporary solution, Bellomo said “our principal concern is to prevent exposure of students to the substance at the school, and this will accomplish that.”

Bellomo said that the ventilation-liner system could be used as a permanent solution, but it is up to the Environmental Protection Agency and the state Department of Health Services to decide whether another solution is preferable.

Park Avenue was closed last July after parents and teachers raised concerns about health hazards associated with the sticky black goo that has appeared on the playground in tiny puddles every summer since the school opened in 1968. District officials closed the school, a desperately needed year-round campus in one of the most overcrowded regions of the Los Angeles district. About 1,100 Park Avenue students have been sent to Teresa Hughes Elementary School and Clara Street Primary Center, where they occupy bungalows near the back of the campus.

Shel Erlich, a spokesman for the district, said Bellomo’s firm was hired last September to determine what was causing the seepage and what needed to be done at the site. In January, Bellomo told a task force made up of parents, teachers and federal, state and local officials that Park Avenue school was built on an old city dump that--in addition to various types of rubbish--contained several pockets of petroleum sludge and petroleum-contaminated soil.

Bellomo told the task force that students would not face any health threats unless they had repeated and prolonged contact with the petroleum sludge. He also said a study of the air found that there are no traces of hazardous vapors.

District officials had hoped to reopen the school in September because it would have caused the least disruption for students. However, there have been delays caused in part by the school board’s budget problems, Erlich said.