An Inconvenient School

Los Angeles school officials have named a school after Al Gore, making him the first vice president to receive such an honor - though they may as well have built it on a burning pile of feces to effect the same result, given the location.

The $75.5 million Carson-Gore Academy of Environmental Sciences will open September 13, ironically on an Arlington Heights property rife with toxic concerns. School district officials insist that the location is clean and safe for the 700 or so students and faculty, continuing to check vapor monitors and groundwater wells, but Gore and Rachel Carson, the late author credited with helping launch the modern environmental movement, would probably disagree.

Construction crews were working at the campus up to the Labor Day weekend, replacing toxic soil with clean fill. They removed the equivalent of a four story building - a 3,800-square-foot plot at a depth of 45 feet - twice. The soil had previously 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, and a barrier will reach 45 feet down from ground level to limit future possible fuel leakage. Also, an oil well operates across the street, though officials have not found any additional risks.

Like many local campuses, this school also sits above an oil field, but no oil field-related methane has been detected. Groundwater deeper than than 45 feet below the surface remains contaminated but also poses no current risk, officials said. However, even with the imported clean dirt, environmental critics are concerned that the pollution sources have not been adequately identified and that the dirty groundwater could recontaminate the soil. By the way, the clean up cost an additional $4 million.