At the outset let’s acknowledge the undisputed fact that the El Marino Language School site was built first, before the 405 Freeway was constructed next to it eight to ten years later. This should not be brushed aside or forgotten. It is the quintessential piece of evidence in this matter.
Proof-Positive
It seems Dr. Rania Sabty-Daily, an environmental researcher, has raised concerns of other El Marino parents to feel anxious about the quality of the air surrounding the E campus.
No Moving the Freeway
She has prefaced her remarks by suggesting that El Marino Language School cannot be moved and that moving the freeway is out of the question. Who says the school cannot be moved? It most certainly can. Wasn't Culver Park High School moved from the El Marino campus?
Why Not Move the School?
If the children's health risks prove great enough, El Marino students would have to be moved away from the offending freeway conditions. Maybe grownup students with mature lungs could use El Marino as an Adult School site.
The last District enrollment report showed 820 students attending the Adult School and 775 enrolled at El Marino.
No Place to Hide
The actual problem at El Marino is not that there are ultra-fine particles in the air. These particulates can be found throughout the air, everywhere around us. It’s just that scientists have found these nano-sized particulates in much higher concentrations during certain weather patterns near major roadways, such as the 405 Freeway.
If El Marino were situated a thousand feet downwind, east of the freeway, the concentrated pollutants would naturally disperse and mitigate the problem.
HEPA-Hype
Dr. Sabty-Daily also is campaigning to convince School Board members and District officials to mitigate her own personal/professional obsession with these ultra-fine, nano-sized particulates by spending taxpayer funds to resolve the problem. Except this is a problem the District did not cause in the first place.
HVAC
She is looking to convince District officials to purchase, install and maintain air conditioning units with very expensive, special clean room-type HEPA air filters.
Building a Case Against Herself
I wonder if Dr. Sabty-Daily realizes that as she builds her case with scientific evidence that there is a public health risk at El Marino, that she is calling into question her own rationale in sending her own children to El Marino and putting them in harm’s way
A School of Choice
If this school site is so unhealthy, as she claims it is, as it may well prove to be, why is she seeming to choose putting her children’s education before their health? El Marino is a school of choice. There is a Spanish Immersion program at La Ballona, much further downwind from the offending 405 Freeway. Why should the District have to mitigate a CalTrans-caused problem, just because she decided this so-called health-risking environment is where her children should be educated?
Think About It
If the classrooms are filtered clean of air pollutants, what effect is it going to have on the kids’ lungs when they leave the purified classroom and go outside to play?
We Gotcha Covered
Maybe the only way the District could alleviate this mother’s fears would be to build an air-tight plastic dome over the El Marino site? It might be cheaper.
Mr. Laase may be contacted at GMLaase@aol.com
