DWP Land Criticized as School Site

Los Angeles school officials warned Thursday that the Department of Water and Power site proposed by state Sen. Richard Alarcon for a high school in the northeast Valley raises serious safety concerns, including the possibility of flooding and toxicity, besides not being centrally located to serve the burgeoning student population.

Alarcon (D-Sylmar) suggested last week that the Los Angeles Unified School District consider building a high school, as well as a middle school and elementary school, on the DWP’s Valley Generating Station in Sun Valley. He proposed the location as an alternative to the site of an old Gemco store in Arleta, which the district said it could acquire through eminent domain but which many neighbors oppose.

Addressing the Los Angeles Board of Education’s facilities committee meeting, Bob Niccum, the district’s director of real estate and asset management, outlined initial problems with the DWP site, near San Fernando Road and Sheldon Street.

Among them were its close proximity to Hansen Dam and Tujunga Wash, which he said could flood during severe storms; to Whiteman Airport, where he said 40% of the takeoffs and landings involve home-built and experimental aircraft; and to 220,000-volt power lines, underground petroleum lines and industrial companies that pose air-quality risks.

The site is also near Metrolink tracks, which Niccum said poses the chance for accidental injury or death.

School officials said there also exists the possibility that the 200-acre site, a portion of which holds a natural-gas-powered plant that has not been used for more than three years, could pose additional environmental risks, but a report hasn’t been done.

Besides those problems, Niccum said, amid groans from board and audience members, the location “is not where the students are.”

Niccum said the district still is interested in building a multistory high school, with an athletic field and underground parking, on the 12.6-acre Gemco site, near Van Nuys Boulevard and Beachy Avenue. The school, serving 2,700 students, would relieve crowding from Monroe, San Fernando and Van Nuys high schools.

Alarcon praised the district for examining environmental concerns, but said it requires further study. He said if the issues could be mitigated, he still advocates building a school on the DWP site because there’s no shortage of space, community opposition or threat of being bogged down in litigation, as the Gemco site is if the district acquires property from unwilling owners.

“The issues need to be explored,” Alarcon said, noting that he’s lived in the northeast Valley for 45 years and the DWP site has never flooded despite storms and earthquakes.