DISTRICT WILL ENFORCE NEW ASBESTOS POLICY.Byline: David R. Baker Staff Writer As another Los Angeles school The Los Angeles School of Urbanism is an academic movement emerged during the mid-1980s, loosely based at the University of Southern California and UCLA, that poses a challenge to the dominant Chicago School of Urbanism. that had been closed for asbestos cleanup reopened Monday, district officials said they had stepped up inspections to hunt for similar problems and prevent them occurring at other campuses. Robert Buxbaum, interim facilities manager for the Los Angeles Unified School District The Los Angeles Unified School District (the "LAUSD") is the largest (in terms of number of students) public school system in California and the second-largest in the United States. Only the New York City Department of Education has a larger student population. , said the district will check all repair and construction projects at schools to make sure workers follow proper procedures for operating in areas where risk of disturbing asbestos is high. The district also will penalize pe·nal·ize tr.v. pe·nal·ized, pe·nal·iz·ing, pe·nal·iz·es 1. To subject to a penalty, especially for infringement of a law or official regulation. See Synonyms at punish. 2. contractors found violating those procedures, he said. ``We're going to be putting some more teeth into our enforcement of the rules here,'' Buxbaum said. Hammel Street Elementary School in East Los Angeles East Los Angeles, uninc. city (1990 pop. 126,379), Los Angeles co., S Calif., a residential suburb of Los Angeles, in an industrial area. It has a large Mexican-American population. There is a performing arts center and a cultural center. A junior college is there. reopened Monday, nearly a week after inspection of Proposition BB maintenance and repair work turned up possible asbestos exposure. Earlier this month, a similar problem at Chatsworth High School forced district officials to close that school. That incident, which involved workers cutting through building materials containing asbestos, triggered the new inspection policy, Buxbaum said. Once commonly used as a fire retardant fire retardant Public health A chemical used to resist combustion, which may contain polybrominated biphenyls and antimony oxide , asbestos poses little danger if undisturbed. Once its fibers are released into the air, however, they can enter the lungs and, with prolonged exposure, lead to cancer. Cleanup work for a different contaminant contaminant /con·tam·i·nant/ (kon-tam´in-int) something that causes contamination. contaminant something that causes contamination. , lead, also finished this weekend at Reed Middle School in North Hollywood. |
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