METAL TESTS PLANNED FOR SCHOOL SITE TOXICS BELIEVED PRESENT.

Byline: Bhavna Mistry Staff Writer

SANTA CLARITA - The state has ordered further testing of the Valencia property where Rio Norte Junior High School is planned, concerned that hazardous metals from pesticides might be in the soil.

The Department of Toxic Substances Control, which reviews all school construction, has asked the William S. Hart Union High School District to check the onetime farm land for lead and arsenic.

``DTSC is requesting that we do additional soil testing for heavy metals,'' said Mike Otavka, the district's director of facilities. ``It is my understanding that heavy metals are associated with certain pesticides.''

The school site, the district's third choice for its fifth junior high school, is at McBean Parkway and Cooper Hill Drive. The land was used for agriculture - primarily winter wheat and barley crops - from 1947 to 1973.

School officials initially tested a two-acre portion of the land and found traces of the pesticide DDT and its derivative DDE. DDT, found to be harmful to human health, was banned 25 years ago in the United States.

The residue found was below the standard set by the federal Environmental Protection Agency, but the state ordered further testing as a precaution.

``Some pesticides have heavy metals in them,'' said Javier Hinojosa, senior scientist on the project for the DTSC, adding that metals also naturally occur in soil. ``We want to see if they are in any concentration that may cause problems.''

Hinojosa said the district has been asked to conduct a full sweep of testing for metals, including cadmium, nickel and copper as well as lead and arsenic, a highly poisonous metallic element used in insecticides.

The district had hoped to have the school open by the 2001/2002 school year, and is uncertain whether the latest testing request will delay that plan.