LINES MAY BE RISK TO STUDENTS ELECTRIC POWER GENERATES FIELD.

Byline: Karen Maeshiro Staff Writer

LANCASTER - Lancaster School District officials are examining what might have to be done because power lines pass near a proposed middle school site.

The district bought the property at the northwest corner of 45th Street West and Avenue K in 1990, but since then additional power lines have gone up and new rules have been put in place regarding exposure to electromagnetic fields, which have raised safety concerns.

``A lot of these regulations have been generated over the past couple of years. The Belmont fiasco got people worried about a lot of things,'' said Superintendent Steve Gocke, referring to the Los Angeles Unified School District's controversial school project.

The board at Tuesday's meeting approved giving district administrators the authority to hire a Los Angeles-based firm, Field Management Services Corp., at a cost not to exceed $20,570, to do a study and mitigation plan, if needed.

State officials will decide if the situation must be evaluated, Gocke said.

Gocke said the back of school property faces Avenue K.

``It's all generated by the state Department of Education and what they want. If they tell me I have to do it, then I'm ready to go,'' Gocke said.

If hired, the consultant would measure ``the juice coming out of those lines'' and come up with a mitigation plan, Gocke said.

The recommendation most likely would be to keep the school more than 100 feet from the line, Gocke said: ``not developing 100 feet so no kids would go within 100 feet of the line.''

Electric and magnetic fields are invisible lines of force that surround any electrical device. For years, people have worried about whether they can cause adverse health effects.

According to the National Institutes of Health, since 1995, two major U.S. reports have concluded that limited evidence exists for an association between EMF (electromotive force) exposure and increased leukemia risk but that when all the scientific evidence is considered, the link between EMF exposure and cancer is weak.

The World Health Organization in 1997 reached a similar conclusion, the NIH said.

This is the first time Lancaster has had to deal with the issue of power lines and electromagnetic fields. A report by Field Management said there is a 66,000-volt transmission line running along Avenue K within 100 feet of the proposed school, as well as near homes.

Such transmission lines are very common and can be found along major streets in the Antelope Valley, Southern California Edison officials said.

Current state Department of Education guidelines require new schools to be greater than 350 feet from 500,000- to 550,000-volt transmission lines; 150 feet from 220,000- to 230,000-volt lines; and 100 feet from 50,000- to 133,000-volt lines, a report by the company said.

State education officials allow for variances from the distances in special circumstances, the report said.

Edison spokeswoman Alis Clausen said 66,000-volt lines are one of the common transmission voltages in the Antelope Valley.

``All of our substations are served at that transmission level in the area so every neighborhood substation has that kind of transmission going to it,'' Clausen said. ``So we have transmission down most of the major streets in the valley at that transmission level.''

Recent research shows that the largest contribution to children's exposure to magnetic fields results from sources other than transmission lines, i.e. internal electrical wiring or use of electrical appliances, according to the Field Management report.

In the Saugus Union School District, architects designed North Park Elementary School to have all its transformers and electrical equipment in a separate building on the school grounds in response to concerns over the possible danger of electromagnetic fields, officials said.

Karen Maeshiro, [phone]

karen.maeshiro(at)dailynews.com

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Photo:

Power lines run along the north side of Avenue K near 45th Street West, near a proposed middle school site.

Jeff Goldwater/Staff Photographer