A coalition of Malibu parents will meet Wednesday to discuss hiring an independent consultant to examine soil at the Malibu Middle / High School Campus, according to a letter sent to parents Friday.
The Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District has already retained the Arcadia-based environmental consulting firm Executive Environmental to analyze soil on campus for toxins such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). In 2011, soil containing elevated levels of PCBs from historic termite treatments was removed from a portion of the middle school quad.
But parents registered skepticism about the conclusions still to be reached by the consultant.
Parents and community members will meet at 7 p.m. Wednesday at the Point Dume Clubhouse to hear Dr. Ken Rosenfield of Santa Monica environmental consulting firm Soil Water Air Protection Enterprise (SWAPE) speak about his experience with situations similar to the one at Malibu High. Rosenfield is a PhD with expertise in the areas of soil chemistry and PCB contamination and has advised the U.S. Navy, according to the firm’s website.
The letter was sent by Advocates for Malibu Public Schools (AMPS)*, a coalition of parents and community members which was formed several years ago to create an independent Malibu school district.
[*Editor’s note: AMPS president Craig Foster wrote in an email Monday that AMPS “is not advocating for any particular experts” and the email / letter was “only intended to notify people that the meeting was taking place.” For an entire statement from AMPS, see the bottom of the article.]
Rosenfield is expected to provide his assessment of what studies should be done at Malibu High School and how they should be supervised. Rosenfield is expected to be retained at a cost of $5,000, paid for through parent donations, according to the letter.
The district also announced it had retained an independent consultant, Mark Katchen, from the Phylmar Group, to “assume the lead role in identification, analysis, implementation and recommendations for all testing required at the facilities.”
Katchen is described as an “expert in industrial hygiene, toxicology, occupational health, risk communication and e-commerce.”
Katchen will be on campus Monday and Tuesday to conduct a comprehensive review of the campus as well as interview staff, in order to determine further studies that need to be done, according to the statement. He is also reviewing all documents related to the 2011 removal of soil in the middle school quad which was found to contain elevated levels of PCBs, lead and pesticides.
Katchen is working with a community task force to develop an action plan and time lines. Contact information for task force members will be released next week, according to the district.
A statement released by Advocates for Malibu Public Schools (AMPS) on Monday:
AMPS, like all members of our community, are wrestling with how to know with as much certainty as possible the conditions of the MHS/MMS campus as regards health and environmental safety.
AMPS is directing people offering expertise (or offering people with expertise) to the point person the district appointed: Elaine Rene-Weissman. She’s a respected member of the local community, a long time participant in facilities conversations regarding Malibu’s public schools, and an architect by trade.
We think the very best way to help ensure that we have a thorough, accurate, and credible investigation is for parents and community members with expertise (or experts) in the subject to contact Elaine and give her the benefit of their advice in this regard. She’ll be very involved in laying out the structure for the investigation and in choosing the consultants, working with the consortium of Malibu education groups and other community participants.