Before Morgan Hill Unified School District breaks ground on a new $20 million elementary school in an affluent northeast neighborhood, district staff are exploring the best ways to clean up the contaminated soil on the donated 10-acre piece of former farmland.
“The district is still in the investigation phase with respect to existing site and soil conditions,” said Assistant Superintendent Kirsten Perez in an email to the Times. “An architect has been selected and we will begin preliminary site planning within a month.”
An April 5 public hearing introducing the Preliminary Environmental Assessment came and went without comment from staff, trustees or local residents. Board President Bob Benevento and Trustee Donna Ruebusch said continued closed session discussions on the Peet Road acquisition already answered their questions and has kept them updated.
At the same school board meeting, the board of education approved a $40,500 contract for a Removal Action Plan with McCloskey Consultants under oversight of California Department of Toxic Substance Control “to go through a comprehensive environmental review and cleanup process” for the Peet Road Property.
In the PEA, conducted by Geocon Consultants Inc., organochlorine pesticides (referred to as OCPs) “were identified in the soils at the site at concentrations that exceeded the regulatory standards for schools…Based on the cumulative cancer risk, dieldrin in site soil represents a potential threat to the health of future school students, teachers, workers, and visitors.”
The 10-acre plot is still in escrow with ownership transitioning from the Borello family, who donated it for the sole purpose of building an elementary school, to MHUSD, which has requested numerous expenses from its board regarding the site planning and cleanup. In December 2015, the board approved a nearly $1 million design contract with McKim Design Group for what is being called “Borello Elementary School.” The property is located on the corner of Peet Road and Mission Avenida about a mile east of Cochrane Road.
“We have just started planning and the opening of the school would be dependent on the timeline for the remediation of soil and design approval by the Office of Public School Construction,” Perez explained. “Phase one construction is planned to be completed 18 months after close of escrow, so tentatively the school could be open for the 2018-19 school year.”
The kindergarten through fifth grade primary school is being planned to serve up to 600 students, according to the April 5 agenda item.
Previous site assessments of the vacant land detected the same dangerous levels of harmful toxins—including a potentially cancer-causing pesticide known as dieldrin—in the soil due to the decades of agricultural use on the land, according to an Oct. 10, 2014 report by Danville-based McCloskey Consultants.
“No decision has been made regarding (soil) remediation,” Perez said. “The district will be preparing a Removal Action Workplan (RAW), which will provide options for remediation.”
The RAW, which is being prepared but is not yet completed by McCloskey Consultants, must be approved by the State Division of Toxic Substance Control prior to any work beginning. The RAW “will outline how the district will remove hazardous materials from the site,” Perez explained.
Once that is determined, the district has a 30-day public viewing/comment period and the school board will review the remediation options. Until the district decides on the most effective way to cleanse the soil, they do not have a cost estimate.
