Cooper Drum Co

EPA Proposes 6 Additional Superfund Sites: The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said five of the sites for inclusion on the federal Superfund National Priorities List are in California. The new sites are the Concord Naval Weapons Station, Concord; NASA Jet Propulsion Lab, Pasadena; Cooper Drum Co., South Gate; GBF Inc. Dump, Antioch; McCormick & Baxter Creosoting Co., Stockton, and Andersen Air Force Base on Guam.

The soil and ground water under a South Gate company appear to be so contaminated with chemicals that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has proposed putting it on the national Superfund List, which targets the country's most contaminated sites for cleanup. The premises of Cooper Drum Co., 9316 S. Atlantic Ave., are polluted with industrial solvents and other chemicals, including cancer-causing vinyl chloride and benzene, an EPA spokesman said.

The soil and ground water under a South Gate company appear to be so contaminated with chemicals that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has proposed putting it on the national Superfund List, which targets the country's most contaminated sites for cleanup. The premises of Cooper Drum Co., 9316 S. Atlantic Ave., are polluted with industrial solvents and other chemicals, including cancer-causing vinyl chloride and benzene, an EPA spokesman said.

EPA Proposes 6 Additional Superfund Sites: The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said five of the sites for inclusion on the federal Superfund National Priorities List are in California. The new sites are the Concord Naval Weapons Station, Concord; NASA Jet Propulsion Lab, Pasadena; Cooper Drum Co., South Gate; GBF Inc. Dump, Antioch; McCormick & Baxter Creosoting Co., Stockton, and Andersen Air Force Base on Guam.

The first person convicted under Los Angeles' hazardous materials "right-to-know" ordinance was fined $1,000 Thursday and ordered to spend two days cleaning freeways for failing to register materials that burned during a toxic fire. David Cooper, 44, the owner of Cooper-La Clear Inc., a steel drum recycling firm that does business as David Cooper Drum Co., was also placed on one year's informal probation by Municipal Court Commissioner Joseph Spada.

The Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education has decided to close pollution-plagued Tweedy Elementary School in South Gate. The board voted Monday to close the school "in a timely fashion" without specifying a target date. The board also requested that school district staff members meet with South Gate parents and elected officials to discuss options for relocating Tweedy's 570 students and other issues related to the closure.

The Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education is expected to discuss action Monday that would allow the closure of pollution-plagued Tweedy Elementary School in South Gate. If the board gives final approval to a three-year lease agreement with the City of South Gate, the school's students will be moved temporarily to a portion of South Gate Park. The school district's Building Committee approved the lease agreement on Thursday before sending it to the full board.

In the first prosecution under Los Angeles' 2-year-old "right-to-know" ordinance, a metal barrel recycling company and its owner were charged Wednesday with failing to supply the Fire Department with an inventory of the hazardous materials stored at the plant. The city attorney's office said a firefighter was injured after he inhaled toxic fumes while battling a blaze June 12 at David Cooper Drum Co., 6920 S. Stanford Ave., in South-Central Los Angeles.

When children eat their lunch at Tweedy Elementary School, they sit alongside a gray block wall. The wall is part of the Cooper Drum Co., an Atlantic Avenue firm that refurbishes 55-gallon steel drums used in the oil industry. Long a neighbor to the school, the company changed some of its operations this year in response to complaints from parents and school employees about the pungent smell of chemicals from that company and other nearby firms.

Fifteen Los Angeles Unified School District employees say they have developed rashes, headaches and allergies while working at a former elementary school that was closed to students in 1988 because of concerns over air pollution and other contamination. Several of the 20 employees at the former Tweedy Elementary School site in South Gate say they have asked the district to move them away from the industrial area. The former school is next-door to the Cooper Drum Co.

The Los Angeles Unified School District has decided to vacate its offices at a former school in an industrial area of South Gate after 15 employees complained of rashes, headaches and other health problems. The last of the 20 employees at the former Tweedy Elementary School are scheduled to be moved to other district offices by the end of the week, Deputy Supt. Ruben Zacarias said.

Where the Huntington Park Elks Lodge stood, the Los Angeles Unified School District saw a wonderful site for a new and badly needed elementary school. What the district's planners did not see--or as its critics charge, simply ignored--were the bright, red and white signs of the industrial plant next door that read, "Danger Cyanide."