What the heck is going on in the Los Angeles Unified School District? First we had the over-priced Robert F Kennedy Community Schools. Now, word comes that a charter school dedicated to "environmental sciences" - i.e. Green advocacy - and named for Rachel Carson and Al Gore is built on a toxic waste dump. No, this is not a joke:
The $75.5-million Carson-Gore Academy of Environmental Sciences will open Sept. 13 for about 675 students. As he was with Bill Clinton (who has an L.A. middle school named after him), Gore is second on the ticket to Rachel Carson, the late author credited with helping launch the modern environmental movement.
"Renaming this terribly contaminated school after famous environmental advocates is an affront to the great work that these individuals have done to protect the public's health from harm," an environmental coalition wrote in a letter to the Los Angeles Unified School District. Making sure the school is safe "would be an even better way to honor their contribution to society."
Construction crews were working at the campus up to the Labor Day weekend, replacing toxic soil with clean fill. All told, workers removed dirt from two 3,800-square-foot plots to a depth of 45 feet, space enough to hold a four-story building. The soil had contained more than a dozen underground storage tanks serving light industrial businesses.
Additional contamination may have come from the underground tanks of an adjacent gas station. A barrier will stretch 45 feet down from ground level to limit future possible fuel leakage.
An oil well operates across the street, but officials said they've found no associated risks. Like many local campuses, this school also sits above an oil field, but no oil field-related methane has been detected.
Groundwater about 45 feet below the surface remains contaminated but also poses no risk, officials said.
The school cost $75 million to build, but now needs another $4 million to clean up whatever lingering waste is out there. Even more toxic is the curriculum, which promises to teach kids absolutely nothing they could use in the real world should they ever manage to graduate.
Lowry said the school's environmental emphasis will do Gore proud, including recycling projects and research and beach cleanups. Cross-curriculum efforts will include environmental speeches and presentations in English, topsoil measurements in math and climate study in science.
The principal also envisions an organic garden that could produce a student-led farmer's market.
We are approaching the moment of liberal singularity, where their ideas will finally attain infinite density and zero volume
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