Local News RSS Feed
Print Story
E-mail StoryToxic cleanup part of school's construction
| Wednesday, Nov 22 2006 9:35 PM
Last Updated: Wednesday, Nov 22 2006 9:39 PM
Toxic concentrations of spilled herbicides, lead and diesel fuel contaminate one corner of the new Independence High School site in southwest Bakersfield.
Our readers recommend:
Loading Stories
Construction on the Kern High School District campus is underway and will continue as crews clean up the nearby toxic site over the next few months.
The California Department of Toxic Substances Control is overseeing the clean-up. Two to three truckloads of material will be dug up and driven away to hazardous material dumps, according to public notice documents from the agency.
Mark Malinowski, Sacramento schools unit chief for the DTSC, said the site needs cleaning up but the contamination is small and does not pose a substantial risk.
The toxins
Chemicals, metals and petroleum soaked into the ground over the course of the more than 50 years that the 1.17 acre area was used as a farm equipment yard by the Destefani family, according to a 47-page report on the toxics.
Lead, flaked off from paint on the dilapidated farm shacks on the site, was found at concentrations of 379 parts per million, significantly higher than the amount that requires a clean up.
Organochlorine herbicides, likely spilled accidentally from storage barrels during farm operations, were found at concentrations of up to 1,172 ppm -- 13 times the DTSC clean-up threshold.
"The area was actually a pesticide storage and mixing area," Malinowski said.
Spilled diesel fuel had soaked into the soil at several spots in concentrations up to 14,100 ppm, 14.1 times the amount that will trigger a DTSC clean up. Contamination is confined to several specific areas and has migrated a maximum of five feet below the surface of the ground, according to the Soils Engineering, Inc. report the DTSC used as the basis for its clean up plan.
The report states the contaminated soils pose only a small danger of being blown into the air or transferred to surface or ground water.
The district reacts
But the toxics do not belong on a high school campus, said Richard Ruiz, director of business services for the Kern High School District.
"We're concerned that there is contamination and we're going to clean it up and make sure it's clean," he said.
But he said the district, which reviewed the clean up during several school board meetings, has no concerns about the land becoming a high school once the toxic material is gone.
KHSD trustees had mixed reactions to news of the toxic contamination of their future school site.
"I had no idea. I wish I had heard it from somebody other than the paper," said trustee Chad Vegas.
But trustee Connie Wattenbarger said she was aware of the testing and the discovery of the contamination -- and had no concerns.
"They (DTSC) come in at every site. It's routine," she said.
The toxic contamination was discovered in late 2005 and early 2006.
Ruiz said the district understood from early surveys of the Independence High site that there could be toxics to clean up. But it is hard to find a good site for a high school that doesn't have some lingering concerns from chemicals used in the agriculture and oil industries.
The district purchased the land at McCutchen and Old River roads for $5.5 million in August 2005 from the Destefani and Petrini families.