The only problem, it’s on toxic land:
L.A. school officials have named a school after Al Gore, making him the first vice president to receive such an honor.
Yet there are concerns over the school — not over Al Gore’s name but because some critics fear the campus’ location poses a long-term health risk to students and staff.
School district officials insist that the Arlington Heights property is clean and safe. And they’ve pledged to check vapor monitors and groundwater wells to make sure.
The $75.5-million Carson-Gore Academy of Environmental Sciences will open Sept. 13 for about 675 students. As he was with Bill Clinton (who has an L.A. middle school named after him), Gore is second on the ticket to Rachel Carson, the late author credited with helping launch the modern environmental movement.
“Renaming this terribly contaminated school after famous environmental advocates is an affront to the great work that these individuals have done to protect the public’s health from harm,” an environmental coalition wrote in a letter to the Los Angeles Unified School District. Making sure the school is safe “would be an even better way to honor their contribution to society.”
Construction crews were working at the campus up to the Labor Day weekend, replacing toxic soil with clean fill. All told, workers removed dirt from two 3,800-square-foot plots to a depth of 45 feet, space enough to hold a four-story building. The soil had contained more than a dozen underground storage tanks serving light industrial businesses.
The rest here.