Soil chemicals identified at new elementary school location

By John Loesing Acorn Staff Writer

Officials working on the new Yerba Buena Elementary School in Agoura Hills say they’ve found pesticides where an old farmhouse formerly stood.

The contaminated soil was discovered during a school site review by the California Department of Toxic and Substance Control, a division of the State Department of Education.

The DTSC requested three separate soil samples from the 12-acre site, which is located in the northwest corner of Agoura Hills, next to Westlake Village.

"We’ve done samples across the entire site and this is the only area where we found anything," said Eileen Wintemute, an environmental consultant for Las Virgenes Unified School District.

"It’s where the farmer apparently mixed his chemicals," said Rodney Hippenhammer, Yerba Buena project manager.

The department gave the go-ahead to build the 24-classroom school, but said the contaminated area must be blocked off and the pesticide-laden soil removed while construction is underway.

School district officials said workers will begin hauling the soil away later this year and taking it to a hazardous waste site for dumping. The cost of the removal isn’t known.

"All the soil should be removed from the site long before the students return to school," Wintemute said.

The $14 million school is scheduled to open in the fall of 2004 and will serve as the new home for Yerba Buena students, whose current school is a crowded, 30-year-old campus adjacent Lindero Canyon Middle School.

The project already is a year behind schedule. Among other concerns, officials have had to deal with the relocation of high voltage power lines that crossed the site. The 66,000-volt lines will be placed underground to reduce the danger of electro-magnetic fields.

Planners also vacillated between a one-story and two-story design. The school will be one story.