New Pollution Probe of School Site Begun

Two days after conceding that they could no longer guarantee the safety of a Los Angeles middle school built next to a Superfund site, state environmental officials said Friday that they have opened a new investigation into toxic contamination.

In a letter being mailed to parents of Jefferson New Middle School students, the Department of Toxic Substances Control said it had received new information that a soil vapor extraction system was not operating properly and that soil imported to the site may contain contaminants.

As a result of the disclosures, made at a state Senate hearing Wednesday, a neighborhood group said Friday that it intends to file a lawsuit next week seeking to close the school.

“We are here today to tell the school board they better start finding places for the children,” said Juanita Tate, executive director of Concerned Citizens of South-Central Los Angeles.

But school officials vehemently denied that there is a health risk and implored faculty and parents to stay calm.

“Everybody has to be patient,” Barry Groveman, outside environmental counsel for the Los Angeles Unified School District, said at a faculty meeting minutes after the citizens group concluded a news conference outside the school. “The school is completely safe.”

Groveman said those who call the campus hazardous are spreading hysteria.

Jefferson opened in July after remaining vacant a year because of concerns about two carcinogens found in the soil beneath it.

The district bought East 56th Street land in 1991 and cleaned up the site, once home to a gas station and furniture plants, by removing about 15 feet of earth and replacing it with dirt from California Department of Transportation excavations.

But in 1996, state environmental officials notified the district of possible chromium contamination seeping underground toward the school after a state inspector revealed that the campus was across the street from a former chrome-plating plant now on the state Superfund list.

The district was allowed to open the school after a health risk assessment concluded that it was safe.

However, state Sen. Tom Hayden (D-Los Angeles) introduced records at the Wednesday hearing that he said show that the vapor extraction system designed to remove the toxic trichloroethylene from underground soil was shut down for long periods.

The records also show that, when running, the system emits another carcinogen, methylene chloride, in excess of permitted quantities, he said.

Under questioning by Hayden, state officials conceded that they could not say the imported soil was free of toxic substances.

As a result of the disclosures, the California Environmental Protection Agency ordered a new health assessment Friday and recommended that the district establish a monitoring system. Groveman said that assessment would be complete by next week.