Department of Water Resources
A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment
April 23, 2008
4. Water Quality -
Contaminated site OKd for L.A. elementary school
Desperate for a place to put a new campus, the Board of Education settles on an east
NO CLEAR RX FOR DISPOSING OF DRUGS
Local groups start take-back programs for unwanted medicines -
San Francisco Chronicle
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Contaminated site OKd for L.A. elementary school
Desperate for a place to put a new campus, the Board of Education settles on an east
By Evelyn Larrubia,
An environmental consultant hired by the school district said the soil and underground water contamination on the site next to Virgil Middle School could be cleaned up for a "very preliminary estimate" of $10 million, which would include installation of an impermeable barrier to stop off-site pollution plumes from recontaminating the site.
The district will now begin more in-depth environmental analysis before construction begins.
"This is by no means an easy decision," said board President Monica Garcia, who visited the school Monday. "We have looked for every piece of land, and in this mid-Wilshire area . . . density is a challenge."
The search for a place to put the new school, known as Central Region Elementary School No. 20, has been a political minefield.
L.A. Unified district staff initially proposed expanding the site of a primary center and taking some homes that were part of the Eco Village, an environmentally friendly housing community that had once before staved off the building of a school on its site.
The group fought back again, filling public meetings and enlisting Los Angeles City Councilman Eric Garcetti to help kill the latest plan. Among their suggestions for a different location was the site across the street, at
When Virgil teachers, parents and administrators learned about the plan recently, they applied their own political pressure.
Angry not only because of the toxics known to be on the site, the group also was concerned that the plan would create two schools separated by a fence, together housing nearly 2,000 children between ages 5 and 14 -- and that the noisy construction would make it hard for students at underperforming Virgil to improve their test scores.
Both groups spoke before the board Tuesday, as did the principal and parents of
"My kids and my families have waited long enough for the construction of the new school," said Principal Rosa Eshaq, who did not mention the pollution on the future site.
The result was an hour of public comment during which each group downplayed the concerns of the others. In the end, the board agreed to move forward with the plan at Virgil. The project could lose funding if it's not submitted to state officials by November 2009.
The site of the future playing fields is north of the school, partially on district-owned property and also on commercial land that the district would have to buy. Environmental reports show contamination from an alphabet soup of chemicals, including benzene, ethylbenzene, toluene, vinyl chloride, MTBE, gasoline and perchloroethene, among others.
The sources of some of the underground water contamination are unknown, but at least one possible suspect is the nearby Midway Ford auto repair body shop.
If the source of the water toxics is not discovered and cleaned, it could recontaminate the water, which in turn could recontaminate the soil, according to a district consultant.
Under the current plan, the district would not just install a barrier but also dig wells outside the perimeter to monitor off-site contamination. The district must rely on regulatory agencies to compel outside businesses that are polluting the water to clean up their land, officials said.
That solution is less than satisfactory for
"Unless you control the sources of the contamination uphill," she said, "there's no sense in doing the cleanup."
The property was considered -- and rejected -- for an elementary school in the late 1980s and a high school in the early 1990s and again as a high school in 2000, after the school board voted to cancel the half-finished Belmont Learning Complex.#
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-toxic23apr23,1,2321331.story
NO CLEAR RX FOR DISPOSING OF DRUGS
Local groups start take-back programs for unwanted medicines
San Francisco Chronicle – 4/23/08
By Victoria Colliver, staff writer
"The pharmacy tech opened the brown paper bag and said, 'What do you want us to do with it?' " said Dowling, 68, adding that the drugs she tried to drop off about a week ago included an inhaler and some anti-diarrheal pills.
The experience left Dowling frustrated and unsure of what to do with her unwanted medications. "It just seems to me that with all the things we're doing to pollute the Earth, if I can in some small way do my part in not flushing pollutants down the drain, then I was all for it," she said.
Consumers are rightly confused about what to do with their unwanted medications because they've received conflicting messages from government and environmental sources. Federal guidelines direct consumers which medications to flush and how to properly put others in the trash. But landfills can leak, potentially causing drugs to leach into the soil, and flushing has contaminated waterways.
As a result, trace amounts of medications have been found in drinking-water supplies, causing growing concern about the effect of those drugs on aquatic life and humans.
Most drugs enter water sources when they are flushed down the toilet or people pass the substances through their system. While wastewater is treated before it is reintroduced to rivers and streams, most treatments do not remove all chemical residues.
The Associated Press in March reported the results of a five-month investigation, which found that the drinking water in 24 major metropolitan areas contained a variety of prescription medicines in low concentrations.
The drugs included sex hormones, antibiotics, mood stabilizers, anti-convulsants and many others. The effect on humans is unknown.
In response to Dowling's experience, a Walgreens spokeswoman said the employee responded appropriately because the company does not have a take-back program but instead encourages customers to follow federal guidelines.
Federal guidelines suggest mixing drugs with an unappealing substance, such as coffee grounds or kitty litter, and putting them in nondescript containers to prevent people from finding them in the trash. The Food and Drug Administration also advises people to flush rather than throw away controlled substances such as Oxycontin, Percocet, Valium and Vicodin.
'No-win situation'
But environmental health advocates disagree with those options. "At this point, you have to stockpile them, but that's not without its danger in terms of substance abuse. It's kind of a no-win situation," said
Local government pharmacy take-back programs, which encourage people to take their unwanted drugs to their pharmacy for disposal, and one-day events are consumers' best option, Early said. But this potential solution isn't available in all areas.
Because federal law requires that law enforcement personnel be present when controlled substances such as narcotics are received, some pharmacies have been reluctant to accept medications. The fear is that a thief or unscrupulous employee would steal the drugs for personal use or to sell.
Concerned pharmacists in
At an Earth Day event Tuesday,
Vasquez said the drugs will be taken to a waste energy plant incinerator in
Teleosis Institute, a
Green pharmacy program
Teleosis last year started a Green Pharmacy program, which to date has collected more than 1,000 pounds of unused drugs at 15 take-back sites throughout the Bay Area, said Evin Guy, manager of the program.
Participating pharmacies include Bay Area Pharmaca Integrative Pharmacy and Elephant Pharmacy locations.
Legislative efforts are starting to address the problem. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in October signed into law a bill expected to ultimately produce a model drug-disposal program to be used statewide, but the process is early in development.
Robert Turner, senior registered environmental health specialist in charge of
"What we're doing is a first step, but after that we need to try to get to a position where we can make these available to
Don't flush drugs down the toilet
Studies have shown about 54 percent of consumers put unwanted medications in the trash and 35 percent flush them down the toilet. Prescription drugs have been detected in our drinking-water supplies. Here are some do's and don'ts about what to do with unused drugs:
-- Don't put medications down the toilet or in the trash.
-- Purchase only the amount of drugs you expect to use.
-- Dispose of drugs at pharmacies, other locations or at one-day events that accept unused medications. Ask whether your county's household hazardous-waste disposal program will accept medications.
-- For information about where to drop off your medications in the Bay Area, go to teleosis.org.#
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/04/23/BU6G109884.DTL
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