MORE TOXIC SCHOOLS? FUTURE, EXISTING CAMPUSES PROBED FOR PROBLEMS.

Byline: Dana Bartholomew Staff Writer

Nine San Fernando Valley schools and sites are under investigation for possible toxic contamination, including a future Van Nuys elementary school site laced with pesticides, officials said Thursday.

Stung by its failure to find explosive methane under the haluilt Belmont Learning Center, the Los Angeles Unified School District and state have reopened probes of three Valley schools near landfills.

Those investigations center on Arminta Street and Germain Street elementaries and Francis Polytechnic High School, where landfills could be leaching methane gas and other emissions.

The schools remain in use during the investigation, and district and state officials said parents should not be concerned.

``It should be comforting to parents, we are actively searching out these problems and investigating them,'' said Los Angeles school board member Valerie Fields. ``I think it's a sign of the times that we are being pro-active.''

Before it was built, the district found the Valerio Primary Center site was atop soil laden with pesticides, herbicides and lead. The dirt was hauled away prior to construction last year.

The state Department of Toxic Substances Control, as a result of new state laws enacted after the Belmont scandal, also is conducting preliminary assessments of four new Valley school sites and has investigated a fifth.

On Wednesday at the Van Nuys New Elementary School No. 1, a shovelful of dirt ceremoniously dug by LAUSD officials to celebrate their first new Valley elementary school in two decades could be carted off as contaminated.

By the time the school is built at Vanowen Street and Columbus Avenue, about 75 cubic yards - or three or four double dump trucks of dirt - must be removed because investigators found they contain arsenic and chemicals associated with pesticide use.

School board member Julie Korenstein maintains that DTSC oversight is working to clean up school sites.

``I think we're working very well together and it will ultimately benefit the health and safety of children,'' she said.

The state agency expects to complete reports on 41 LAUSD sites by the end of next year. Such reports are required before up to 100 new schools are built in the next decade.

``The school district finally got the sense to say, 'Damn it, we're not doing something right: Let's bring in an outside agency before schools are constructed,''' said Angelo Bellomo, district interim director of the environmental health and safety division.

``There is not going to be a school that opens that doesn't have a full (environmental) review certification from the DTSC before kids are moved onto the site - there will be no Jeffersons.''

Environmental scandals, such as the one centered on Jefferson Middle School in South Los Angeles and the Belmont Learning Center downtown, have caused legislators to bring in state oversight of new school construction.

At Jefferson, the district had installed a system to clean toxins from the soil that spewed potentially dangerous matter into air conditioning vents and across outside lunch tables.

At Francis Polytechnic High School in Sun Valley, methane gas from a nearby landfill filled buildings to explosive levels on more than one occasion while a crucial monitoring system lay inoperable for a year.

As a result, state Sen. Tom Hayden, D-Los Angeles, Assemblywoman Martha Eschutia, D-Los Angeles, and Scott Wildman, D-Glendale, pushed bills forcing the DTSC to clear sites for new school 123 districts across the state.

``This puts teeth into environmental oversight of California schools,'' Wildman said. ``There has been a significant sea change at L.A. Unified in terms of environmental assessment.''

Though Wildman said he threatened to withhold $278 million in school funding to goad district officials to allow the DTSC to oversee inspection of contaminated schools such as Francis Polytechnic, school officials maintain such cooperation was voluntary.

The DTSC currently is assessing methane emissions at Arminta Elementary in North Hollywood and Germain Elementary in Chatsworth.

At Francis Poly, where the talk of the campus used to center on the dangers of explosive methane gases, the agency will monitor emissions for the next year.

One longtime Poly coach quit because he wouldn't work his team into the ground on the football field knowing that children could develop cancer from dump emissions.

But after LAUSD tests last year revealed that few people were affected by the gases in a five-mile radius, school officials say few mention methane anymore.

``It's like a huge weight has been lifted off our back,'' said Poly Assistant Principal Dan Schar. ``One of the results of the tests was that the coach, who had been here a long time, came back and asked to be considered for a position as a coach again.''

Other LAUSD staffers remain hopeful. Dorothy Allison, the plant manager at Germain Elementary, said LAUSD inspectors arrived at the school early this summer to conduct environmental tests for methane contamination.

``Their readings were zero,'' she said. ``There's absolutely nothing here.''

The final report is not complete.

But Maggie Randall, a YMCA community resource director who helps conduct before- and after-school classes at Germain Elementary School, was surprised to learn that her school has been testing for methane.

``A couple of times I smelled gas,'' she added. ``But I didn't know what it was. The school should have informed us.''

Javier Hinojosa, a DTSC chief in charge of school investigations, said there's no reason to be alarmed.

``If the department had found something of immediate risk, we would have acted right away.''

Staff Writer Jason Kandel contributed to this story.

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Map: TOXIC SPOTS

Nine San Fernando Valley schools and school sites have been under investigation for possible toxic contamination, including land for a new Van Nuys elementary school where pesticides have been found. The Los Angeles Unified has submitted to state oversight in the search for toxic chemicals because of the district's failure with the Belmont Learning Center, which was abandoned by the district this year after explosive gas and chemicals were found on the downtown site.