SOUTH GATE : Proposed School Site Causes Concern

The Los Angeles Unified School District plans to build an elementary-high school complex on a 33-acre industrial site despite concerns from state officials over possible environmental hazards.

The site, at Tweedy Boulevard and Adella Avenue, would provide classrooms for students from Tweedy Elementary as well as students now attending South Gate and other high schools. The students at Tweedy Elementary were forced from their Southern Avenue school about half a mile away in 1988 because of cancer-causing vinyl chloride and other chemicals that leaked from industrial firms nearby. The students are housed temporarily in 11 bungalows at South Gate Park at a cost of $116,666 per year.

“We’re concerned that the land (for the new site) may be contaminated to the point that clean-up would be cost-prohibitive,” said Frank Harding, a deputy local assistance officer with the state Allocation Board in Sacramento, which allocates money for new schools. “Is there long-term liability? It is unclear who would be liable if anything happens on that site 10 or 15 years from now.”

The school district has applied for $67 million in state bond money to pay for the project, which would be completed after 1995, officials said.

The high school would have a total enrollment of 3,480, with as many as 2,700 students attending on single tracks. The elementary school would have 900 students total, with as many as 709 on single tracks.

Iron and aluminum foundries now occupy the site, as do a metal-plating company and several other industrial companies. A pesticide manufacturer had been on the site, district officials said. The school district would purchase the land from the existing businesses.

Bob Niccum, the school district’s director of facilities planning and real estate, said the district plans to clean up any existing environmental problems at the site, including soil tainted by pesticides.

The school district has spent nearly $1 million on a series of recent studies to examine environmental problems at each of the 44 parcels that make up the site. The studies list measures that would be needed to ensure the students’ safety, Niccum said.

“We’re confident that we are going in with our eyes open,” Niccum said. “Our safety people have reviewed (the state’s) concerns and ensure us they can all be dealt with. We know what the problems are.” Niccum declined to specificy the contaminants that would need to be cleaned up.

Tweedy Elementary Principal Leo Garcia said that he will be comfortable with the new site as long as school district, state and federal environmental officials are satisfied.

“In light of what happened at the old site, the authorities, I’m sure, are conducting the appropriate tests for environmental safety,” Garcia said. “If it is environmentally safe for the students, I would have no objections for them to build the new school.”

Meanwhile, the school district plans to sell the former Tweedy site at 5115 Southern Ave. Niccum said about a dozen parties have expressed interest in the three-acre property, which he has recommended selling for a minimum of $1.3 million. Bids will be considered later this month, he said.