Costly Toxic Controls Urged for Belmont School Site

A team of scientists on Tuesday recommended rigorous and costly measures to control contamination at the half-completed Belmont Learning Complex, but also told the Los Angeles school board that it would be justified in abandoning the school.

“There are plenty of reasons to oppose or reject this site,” said Angelo Bellomo, the environmental scientist for the Los Angeles Unified School District’s environmental safety team.

But he added that there are reasons to continue with the $200-million downtown high school.

“Everyone who walks that site sees what it could be,” Bellomo said. “It could be a major contribution to the community.”

The team urged the board to conduct hearings on the issues surrounding Belmont, including the need for long-term monitoring equipment, potential liability, costs and, most important, a soul-searching examination of the management failures that allowed the project to get this far without environmental protections.

“There is evidence of a lack of oversight, a lack of ownership,” said the team’s attorney, Barry Groveman.

Groveman said the team’s own recommendations won’t work without a district staff that can be trusted to oversee them.

“There’s just unfortunately a lot of people in the execution part of the district who are only $30,000 employees making $200-million decisions for a $7-billion entity,” Groveman said.

Board member Valerie Fields, who had not yet been elected when Belmont was approved in 1997, said she was “hearing a message between the lines that maybe the district doesn’t have the capability to ensure 100% safety.”

Board member David Tokofsky, who had voted against the project, asked, “What are the costs of the various options and the big issue: Should we shut this place down?”

The three board members who were defeated in this year’s election--all of whom voted for Belmont--made no comment.

Board President Victoria Castro, the project’s most outspoken supporter, questioned the team on its recommendation for yet more testing to determine the environmental hazards on the 39-acre campus at 1st Street and Beaudry Avenue.

“Here is a study that recommends more studies,” Castro said. “I need a definition to this.”

Belmont is being constructed over a portion of an oil field that is the source of methane gas and other toxic chemicals that will continue to seep upward through the soil for the lifetime of the school.

The team’s written report recommended 13 measures to ensure “fail safe” conditions. Those include collection pipes under buildings with pumps to suck out methane. Some portions of the retail portion of the project might have to be dismantled for pipe installation, the team said.

As an alternative to pipes and pumps, air gaps could be constructed within the buildings to carry methane away, and those buildings that have not yet been started could be built on raised beds of permeable soil.

Because of potential crude oil seepage, the team also recommended covering the entire field with a fabric sheet.

The safety team expanded only slightly on its previous estimates that the cost to protect the school would range from $4 million to $10 million, saying that it would be the high end.

The cost of studies already conducted this year reached $1.5 million after the state’s Department of Toxic Substances Control demanded more soil and air samples than the team’s initial plan.

For the first time, however, the safety team indicated that the remedies would considerably delay the project, originally scheduled to be completed in July 2000. Bellomo told the board it wasn’t likely the district could obtain state certification of the school’s safety by then.

The safety team reported that toxic substances, including carcinogenic benzene, were found to be present only at levels considered safe by current state standards. The methane, though, presents a risk of explosion if it should accumulate in any enclosed space.

The recommendations immediately fueled new calls for the district to abandon the project.

“We’re looking into whether we could legally require them to stop,” said Day Higuchi, president of United Teachers-Los Angeles, the teachers union. “If we could, we would. It’s time to end the misery.”

But others saw the report as part of a conspiracy to block the project for political reasons.

“It’s all about stopping the construction of that school and destroying the district so they can rebuild it,” said Dominic Shambra, the district’s retired head of planning and development, who headed the project.

David Koff, of the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union, said he believes the report was aimed at the three incoming board members.

But safety team members said their recommendations can lead to reforms needed to ensure the success of the district’s huge school-building program.

“This is a defining moment,” Groveman said. “What happens here sets the standard for the next 100 schools.”