School board rejects all bids on school-site cleanup

By Stephanie Bertholdo bertholdo@theacorn.com

The Las Virgenes Unified School District (LVUSD) Board of Education rejected all bids to remove contaminated soil from the proposed new Yerba Buena Elementary School site on Reyes Adobe Road in Agoura Hills. Apparently, some of the contract requirements were not clear.

The Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) had found contaminated soil on the site stemming from pesticides that had been used on a turn-of-the-century farmhouse that once stood on the land.

LVUSD Interim Superintendent Donald Zimring said that the contaminated soil was on a "postage stamp"-sized piece of the 30-acre parcel. He explained that the DTSC finding had delayed the project for two and one-half years.

"We had to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in studies and produce reports and clean-up plans the size of small telephone books in order for the DTSC to meet the state requirement," Zimring said. He added that the soil poses no risk to anybody at this time and that the remnants of the chemicals found on the site are the same that are found in most garages now.

In mid-November, the bidding process was opened for soil removal on the site. The contract included a "supplemental conditions" requirement that specified that bids must include "all allowances to complete the work," which meant providing a tally of any additional costs to the base bid for the project.

Four contractors submitted bids, but three apparently were confused by the wording. Apex Environmental, with a bid of $207,450 seemed to be the lowest bidder, but the bid did not include allowances of $100,000, according to the report presented to board members.

Although the third-lowest bidder understood the documents and included allowances in its base bid, the board decided that the most prudent course of action would be to reject all bids and reissue the bidding process with clarifications at a later date.