Malbu carcinogens may lead to district testing

Following tests by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on campuses of Malibu schools for human carcinogens called Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District (SMMUSD) Superintendent Sandra Lyon has requested a district-wide test for PCBs on other campuses.According to a public statement released by SMMUSD on Oct. 21, PCBs are a mixture of individual chemicals which are no longer produced in the United States but still exist in the environment due to their usage in past projects.The EPA’s data confirmed that it is safe to occupy middle and high school classrooms; however, samples taken from caulk primarily used in window sills showed PCB levels 37 times the level required to trigger EPA involvement. However, according to a statement released by Lyon on Nov. 22, the trigger levels do not indicate any immediate health risk.The EPA suggested that SMMUSD inspect school buildings, remove and dispose the caulk material, test surfaces near the caulk and inspect Malibu High School’s (MHS) ventilation system in order to keep the school safe.“The Board of Education will receive my recommendations for additional, district-wide testing and remediation, which will be overseen by the government health authorities, recommendations for best practice facility cleaning protocols and a plan for increasing the district’s communications capacity to better address the community’s desire to receive timely information and updates,” Lyon said.PCBs were found and extracted from the soil of Juan Cabrillo Elementary School in 2011. Concerns over PCBs increased in early October when three MHS teachers were diagnosed with thyroid cancer and several other teachers experienced health problems possibly related to contaminants on campus. Because SMMUSD revealed the EPA’s data more than a month after parents and teachers voiced concerns about potential contaminants, parents are concerned about the transparency of the information the district has provided to them. These parents have formed an advocacy group called Malibu Parents for Healthy Schools, which has questioned the credibility of the district’s environmental expert and is currently hiring its own environmental consultant to independently review the district’s test data.“It is utterly irresponsible for the district to further delay investigations to discover the true extent of the contamination on campus,” Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) Senior Counsel Paula Dinerstein said. “By taking evasive half-measures, the district is only fanning fears and breeding distrust.”PEER, a Washington, D.C. based environmental advocacy group, is demanding that the SMMUSD test the soil for lead, arsenic and benzene, in addition to the PCBs.According to MHS transfer student Sofia Blanco (’14), Malibu students remain unaffected by PCB testing at school.“I was at the school for five years and got tested for cancer, but the results came back clean,” Blanco said. “I have talked to many of my old friends from Malibu and they all seem pretty unaffected by the situation; they continue to go about the school year as usual. It seems like a big joke to them.”According to Samo Principal Eva Mayoral, Superintendent Sandra Lyon is looking to conduct a district-wide study for PCBs and other carcinogens.“Because this issue has come up at Malibu, [Lyon] is interested in being able to take a look at district-wide buildings so she can get a sense of what’s going in on with all of them,”  Mayoral said. “[Lyon] is looking to do a study across all of [the SMMUSD] campuses to make sure that any possible issues will be resolved.”osherman@thesamohi.com