Beverly Hills Ignores Belmont's Toxic Lessons
The pollution problems that have turned the Belmont Learning Center site into the most expensive school construction project in state history are well known. Similar problems are delaying or scuttling new schools throughout California. However, there is also a clear and present danger at many of the state's 9,000 existing public schools that has been mostly ignored.
One example is Beverly Hills High School. Venoco Inc. runs 18 crude oil and natural gas wellheads there that have been active for decades. From projections in a 1974 city document, the school and the city of Beverly Hills stood to make as much as $50 million from this operation over the life of the lease.
But what are the costs to students and staff? We contend that toxic fumes from oil and gas operations at the campus have caused cancer. Our firm represents 632 former students, teachers and employees from Beverly Hills High School in lawsuits against the city of Beverly Hills, the Beverly Hills school district and the operators of the wellheads.
In 2002, we met 28-year-old Beverly Hills High alumna Lori Moss, in remission from Hodgkin's lymphoma and battling thyroid cancer. Through our research, we found more than 50 other graduates with Hodgkin's lymphoma that could be tied to emissions from the Venoco facility. There are hundreds more battling maladies that could be similarly linked.
In a 1984 environmental checklist, the city of Beverly Hills asked the oil refinery the following: Could there be air emissions or deterioration of the air? Could this facility result in any health hazard or exposure of people to potential health hazards? Could this facility explode in the event of an accident or "upset"? The response to all was, "maybe."
Why were the students and staff not told of this danger? Why was there no testing to monitor the situation? Where was the South Coast Air Quality Management District all these years? For 25 years, the AQMD never tested this site; it finally did when we came on the scene.
We had the school tested and were surprised by the results. They found elevated readings of benzene, a known carcinogen; n-Hexane, a known neuro-toxin; and methane, an explosive gas -- the same gas found under the Belmont site.
