Well this is depressing: a chemical cocktail at Malibu High School is being blamed for a cancer cluster among staffers there, in addition to other health problems like migraines and rashes. "Parents and teachers point to a 2011 effort to remove over a thousand cubic yards of soil contaminated with PCBs, pesticides and hazardous materials," explains the Santa Monica Daily Press, which says that most of the troublesome classrooms are overdue for a renovation--overdue because the project has been held up by "appeals from neighbors." Way to give teachers cancer, NIMBYs. Parents, meanwhile, are freaking out about their kids' exposure and have demanded that students be relocated. The district obliged, and has hired an environmental firm to assess the contamination and determine whether it really is behind the cancer cluster. This kind of swift action is exactly what we haven't seen in response to recent public health nightmares in South LA, in Vernon around the Exide battery recycling facility and the Allenco drilling operation in University Heights. Weird.
· Malibu students relocating over cancer scare [SMDP]
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