District Mulls Tainted Sites for Schools

The Los Angeles school district’s aggressive push to build schools is leading officials to consider campuses in dense, industrial and residential neighborhoods, often requiring extensive cleanup and relocation costs.

The latest of these, which the district acknowledges is far from ideal, is a contaminated South Los Angeles site that would require officials to take dozens of homes and businesses -- either by buying them or seizing them through eminent domain -- and spend millions of dollars to clean.

The Los Angeles Board of Education is expected to vote Tuesday on whether to approve construction of a high school on eight acres bounded by Slauson Avenue on the north, 59th Street on the south, Hoover Street on the east and Menlo Avenue on the west -- the site of gas stations, other industrial companies and homes.

On Saturday, real estate agents for the district canvassed the neighborhood, making conditional offers to homeowners.

The problems surrounding the proposed school site are being repeated as Los Angeles Unified School District officials continue to build badly needed campuses while navigating safety concerns and homeowner angst.

The district already has built 46 new schools, and officials have said they are at the point now that they are looking at more “brownfield” properties -- former industrial sites with potentially contaminated soil.

With construction underway on many campuses, the board is expected to decide on about 20 more proposed sites in coming months. In all, the district plans to build about 150 schools by 2012 in an ambitious effort to end overcrowding, forced busing and year-round calendars.

“With the density of this city, between trying to find an available site, a safe one and one that takes as few homes as possible -- it’s a fine balancing act,” said school board President Marlene Canter. “And it’s only going to get more difficult as we build more schools.”

The proposed high school, which would cost about $100 million and serve 1,215 students, aims to relieve overcrowding at nearby Manual Arts High. It is scheduled to open in 2008.

Before construction can begin, however, district officials have to resolve a legacy of serious environmental problems left by previous industrial concerns that have dotted parts of the site for decades.

Studies conducted by the state Department of Toxic Substances Control detected levels of lead, cadmium, polychlorinated biphenyls -- carcinogens commonly called PCBs -- and other toxic substances in the soil.

And runoff from an old carwash also has left potentially explosive methane deposits, state tests concluded. Some of the methane levels are 10 times higher than state-mandated limits, said Javier Hinojosa, a toxic substances control department supervisor.

He said the district was instructed to conduct additional testing to better determine the extent of the contamination.

Statewide, about 55% of all proposed school sites require extra tests, Hinojosa said. Of those, 10% to 20% require some sort of remediation plan.

District officials say they fully expect to have to clean up the South Los Angeles site. It is estimated that it could cost about $3 million to remove the methane and toxic substances by hauling truckloads of polluted soil from the site, said Angelo Bellomo, the district’s director of environmental health and safety.

In some places, he said, workers probably would have to remove swaths of earth 20 feet deep.

Describing the site as an “outlier” because of its relatively high levels of contamination, Bellomo said the cleanup costs are expected to be significantly higher than for a more typical project.

The district has faltered before when dealing with contaminated sites.

In 2003, district officials discovered that a developer’s team had dumped fill contaminated with PCBs and petroleum byproducts into a 35-foot-deep hole at another high school site.

For two years, they failed to tell state regulators despite a state law requiring school districts to notify state officials whenever contaminants are detected at a school construction site. The campus opened this year after emergency testing concluded the fill did not pose a health risk.

And in November, the board approved plans to complete the much-maligned Belmont Learning Complex. Now renamed Vista Hermosa High School, the hastily purchased site became synonymous with district bungling when shoddy environmental testing failed to detect deposits of methane and hydrogen sulfide. Later, an earthquake fault was discovered running beneath the campus.

Further complicating the school plan is a railroad track that runs along Slauson Avenue about 100 feet from the proposed campus. The district staff has concluded that the trains, which they say pass slowly about three times a week and do not carry dangerous materials, do not violate state regulations.

“I think we can safely put a school on this site,” Bellomo said, “But it’s far from ideal.”

Marcella Andrews couldn’t agree more.

Andrews, 67, has lived in her home on 58th Place with her husband and son since 1968. She and a handful of others have protested the proposed school at various community and board meetings. They acknowledge the need to build schools, but said the district has not adequately considered alternative sites.

On Saturday, she said a real estate agent offered her $381,000 and about $80,000 to cover rising property values. She rejected the offer.

“We have put this house up for sale three times over the years,” she said. “And every time someone came to buy it, I broke down and cried. It’s sentimental value.”

In all, 45 homes and about 10 businesses would have to be demolished to build the school. The district is legally required to pay fair-market prices set by independent appraisers, pay the equivalent of 42 months of rent to tenants and cover relocation costs.

To date, the district has relocated owners and renters from 1,574 homes and businesses, and is selecting sites for the final two phases of the four-phase building project.

Rod Hamilton, a district development manager, denied that other sites for the high school were not considered. The district, he said, had to abandon previous plans to build the school at a different location when environmental testing detected even more severe contamination.

Before settling on the current site, Hamilton said his staff considered others along Slauson Avenue, but rejected them because the railroad tracks would have restricted access to the campus.

Also on Tuesday, the board is expected to consider whether to forge ahead with another controversial plan to build a high school on a former naval housing site in San Pedro. City Councilwoman Janice Hahn is expected to call on the district to find another site.

In recent weeks, schools Supt. Roy Romer has cautioned board members that the coming months promise to be the busiest of the entire construction project.

Board members said the aggressive pace has made it difficult to stay informed on all the proposed sites.

“The rate at which each of these schools is coming [for approval] is unfortunate,” said board member David Tokofsky. “You can’t vote on five sites each meeting and say you’re giving each proper attention.”

Canter said that she relies on her staff to brief her, instead of basing her decisions only on the construction department’s recommendations.

“Their job is to build as many new seats as they can within budgets and timelines, and as safely as possible,” Canter said. “But the board has an oversight responsibility.”