Director Chosen for Belmont School Project

A deputy construction manager from Kaiser Engineering will fill the newly created position of project director for the Belmont Learning Complex, school district officials announced Thursday.

Supt. Ruben Zacarias said Edwin F. Weyrauch will assume total operating control over the environmentally troubled high school project near downtown.

The appointment satisfies a recommendation of the district’s environmental safety team, which concluded after an evaluation this spring that the district had no single person responsible for overseeing expenses and environmental checks on the $200-million project.

Construction, now more than half complete, has been partially halted while the Board of Education decides whether to complete the school.

Studies by the safety team, which was formed after construction on Belmont began, found that the campus, adjacent to a former oil field, is permeated by explosive methane and toxic hydrogen sulfide.

Weyrauch, 51, was a member of the U.S. Naval Engineering Corps for 20 years before becoming an independent consultant in 1992. He joined IFC Kaiser Engineers of San Diego in 1995. He has managed pipeline, pump station and storage tank projects, and most recently a $183-million sewage treatment plant.