SCHOOL SITES TAINTED; AUDIT ASSAILS POLLUTED LAND PURCHASES.

Byline: Terri Hardy Daily News Staff Writer

The Los Angeles Unified School District's practice of building some new campuses on contaminated former industrial sites was sharply questioned by a state legislative audit released Wednesday.

The report, a Joint Legislative Audit Committee investigation, found that the LAUSD's environmental analysis and cleanup at newly built Jefferson Middle School was seriously deficient - an issue of growing importance with 51 new schools planned, some of them on toxic sites.

``The LAUSD may be, in some cases, acquiring urban land for new school construction based on political expedience, while disregarding the environmental costs and health risks associated with the cleanup of polluted land,'' the report stated.

Assemblyman Scott Wildman, D-Glendale, who heads the audit committee, said the district's history of failing to adequately identify and sanitize contaminated property is particularly troubling since L.A. Unified has embarked on a campaign to build 51 more schools within the next decade.

``There is cause for major concern,'' Wildman said. ``Kids need to be safe. If the LAUSD's internal problems of handling environmental problems are not addressed, then they need to be addressed by the state.''

Robert Niccum, the district's real estate and asset management branch director, said there is contamination at two of the 10 sites the LAUSD has bought or is acquiring.

Niccum said that in a congested urban area, choices for new school sites are limited.

``Your options are sites where there are homes, apartments, businesses or factories - there aren't any strawberry fields or orange groves as options,'' he said. ``You're left with the need to build a school. You have to make one of those tough choices.''

Niccum directed calls about environmental problems to the district's environmental health and safety branch. Dianne Doi, acting head of the division, said she could not answer questions about the report's safety concerns.

The report by the audit committee bolsters allegations made by a former environmental director for the district - who was fired Tuesday - that the Los Angeles Unified School District does not conduct adequate environmental studies on its properties and fails to properly clean up the land.

And the report said LAUSD officials did not tell the state allocation board about toxic problems when they sought funding for the Jefferson Middle School site, which is still undergoing an intensive hazardous cleanup.

Land at the new sites for South Gate High School and Tweedy Elementary School is highly toxic, containing chemicals, gasoline, solvents, pesticides and metals, and will require ``meaningful remediation,'' district officials say.

Board of Education President Victoria Castro said environmental problems were expected in South Gate.

``I understand it's possible to clean the land,'' Castro said. ``As we proceed with the 51 schools, the public needs a much clearer understanding of the process. We need to follow what's happening and make sure they're clean and don't put children in unhealthy situations.''

But board member Barbara Boudreaux said the LAUSD should look for other properties.

``The district should not buy contaminated land. There are enough parcels out there. We shouldn't have to deal with this,'' said Boudreaux, whose district includes the environmentally troubled Jefferson Middle School in South Central Los Angeles.

Boudreaux said she didn't learn of the contamination problems until this week. District documents show the board had been apprised of the problems at Tweedy in August and South Gate in March.

Angie Farleigh, campaign director of the environmental group CalPIRG, said cleanup of toxic sites may be possible, depending on the types of chemicals and level of contamination. However, she said, a safer option would be to avoid them entirely.

``There are systems in place that do result in safe cleanup of toxic sites,'' Farleigh said. ``However, I feel that the LAUSD has not done a sufficient job of looking at the chemicals that are already at the site, and of looking at all the options for building elsewhere. At some of them it may be possible to clean it up, but why take that risk?''

Some of the funding for new schools will come from Proposition BB, and members of a citizens oversight committee said using bond money for toxic land is probably not cost-effective.

``Remediation costs can often exceed land costs,'' said Steve Soboroff, chairman of the committee. ``We need to stretch bond dollars, and buying contaminated land isn't a great way to do that.''

The audit report included testimony from the San Diego Unified School District's business services director, who said that district has been able to build all of its new schools without buying contaminated land or condemning property.

Daily News Staff Writer Deborah Sullivan contributed to this story.