Center Threatens to Sue Over Report on Safety of School Site

Saying school officials are withholding vital information from the public, a local environmental group plans to file a lawsuit against the Oxnard Elementary School District to obtain a report about the safety of the proposed Juan Lagunas Soria School, representatives said Thursday.

Attorneys for the Environmental Defense Center in Ventura mailed a letter this week to the district, saying they plan to file suit if officials don’t release the draft toxicology report within 10 days. They say the document shows that Soria students would be exposed to unsafe levels of pesticides from nearby farms.

“The board of trustees is on locomotive speed to get this pushed through without letting the public know about the potential risks of the site,” said Vicki Clark, Environmental Defense Center staff attorney. “We think the information in the report is vitally important to get out to the public.”

But school district attorney Mitchel Kahn said he has no plans to release any more documents. The only toxicology report the district has, he said, is the final one that has already been released to the public.

“We have no plan to release the draft materials,” he said. “The drafts of the reports belong to the consultants, not to the school district. They are not public documents.”

The school board voted 3 to 2 in June to move forward with the school project. Once the project is approved by city and state officials, the 1,200-student campus would be built on agricultural land surrounded by fields on three sides. The 14-acre site sits just outside the city limits west of Rice Avenue at the east end of Emerson Avenue in the Lemonwood neighborhood.

District officials maintain that the school will be safe for students.

“We’ll need to take precautions, but I believe in my heart that it is a safe site,” Supt. Richard Duarte said.

Center attorneys believe that the draft toxicology document shows that Soria students would be exposed to methyl bromide vapors at twice the federal limit that is considered safe. But the final report, included in the environmental impact report, concluded that the risk of methyl bromide exposure is below regulatory limits.

The center will file suit by Dec. 1 under the state Public Records Act if the district doesn’t release the draft report, Clark said Thursday.

“We can’t get them to open their eyes and ears to the potential dangers of the site and to realize that there are alternatives,” she said.

Duarte said the district has nothing to hide.

“As far as we’re concerned, we’ve released everything we have to release,” he said.

School board President Francisco Dominguez believes that the real issue is land use. Many environmentalists who supported the SOAR growth-control initiative don’t want schools or anything else built on farmland.

“I think the EDC is playing games at the cost of children,” he said. “I haven’t seen any concern for children. All they are concerned about is preserving land.”

Although Duarte would like to avoid building a school on farmland, he said the district hasn’t been able to find another suitable site.

And Soria school is desperately needed to relieve crowding, officials said. The district’s 14 elementary schools already operate on a year-round schedule.

In addition to Soria, the district has determined that it will need to build four more schools within five years, Duarte said.

District officials acknowledge that the site is not ideal. The environmental impact report states that pesticides are used at neighboring farms and could be a health risk if no precautions are taken.

But Duarte said the district plans to take steps to protect children and staff from pesticide dangers, including establishing a 100-foot buffer between the school and crops.

At a city Planning Commission meeting Thursday, more than a dozen community members spoke about the site--both in support and opposition. The commission was to decide whether to annex the land, but had not voted as of 9:30 p.m.

Its recommendation is expected to go to the City Council this month. If there are no delays, the district plans to begin construction next summer and open the school in August 2001.