Posted by Axel (12.72.43.79) on October 28, 2002 at 14:36:29:
L.A. Daily News
Thursday, October 24, 2002
'Substantial' cleanup needed at Ambassador
By Helen Gao, Staff Writer
To make the Ambassador Hotel site suitable for school construction, the Los Angeles Unified School District must spend up to $500,000 to remove contaminated soil and plug an oil exploration well, officials said Thursday.
According to a district report, four areas on the 23-acre site need to be cleaned because of contamination from various chemicals, including total petroleum hydrocarbons, volatile organic compounds, lead paint and methane.
Environmental experts for the district estimated that 1,329 cubic yards of soil would have to be removed. In addition, an oil exploration well located near a parking lot along South Catalina Street would have to be sealed.
Jeanne Garcia, spokeswoman for the California Department of Toxic Substances Control, which is overseeing the cleanup, said the problems found at the Ambassador Hotel site are common in downtown Los Angeles.
"There are manageable solutions. There are ways of mitigating the contaminants," she said.
Officials have proposed building an elementary school, middle school and high school on the site to serve students from the mid-Wilshire and Koreatown areas. The proposed schools would ease overcrowding at Hoover Elementary, Virgil Middle, Berendo Middle and Belmont High schools.
Angelo Bellomo, the district's director of environmental health and safety, said the Ambassador site is one of 36 properties that require cleanup before school construction.
"The amount of cleanup is more substantial than we are doing at the 30-plus other sites that require removal of soil," he said. "We are employing standard cleanup techniques. There is nothing unusual here."
The cleanup, which will be done in phases, could start as soon as the end of this year or the beginning of next year. All the soil cleanup has been designed so that the buildings on the site can be left intact.
The Los Angeles Conservancy is pushing for the school district to preserve the hotel and convert it into classroom space. An environmental report, which would in part examine the historical significance of the site, is in the works and expected to be released in January.
Designed by famed architect Myron Hunt, the Ambassador Hotel was the site of the Robert F. Kennedy assassination in 1968 and home of the Cocoanut Grove, a once prominent nightclub.
School district officials have not yet made a decision on whether the hotel and other nearby buildings would be preserved.
However, the Wilshire Center Business Improvement District has countered with a mixed-used project that would include commercial and housing developments, in addition to school facilities.