McKinley Elementary has designs to modernize its campus. But plans are being delayed, and costs are rising since dangerous vapors were found in the soil.
McKinley Elementary has designs to modernize its campus. But plans are being delayed, and costs are rising since dangerous vapors were found in the soil.
ABOUT THE ENVIRONMENT
-In a busy five-acre industrial pocket of Lincoln Heights, north of Downtown Los Angeles, zigzagged with metro lines and freeways and car-choked roads, developers plan to build a 468-unit apartment complex called the Avenue 34 Project.
But the project, which provides 66 units for “very low income” households, can’t escape the area’s polluted legacy.
That’s because the site sits adjacent to Welch’s former industrial dry cleaners that operated for nearly 70 years. During that time, massive amounts of toxic chemicals and solvents, including possible carcinogens like trichloroethylene (TCE) and perchloroethylene (PCE), leaked or were dumped into the soil and groundwater, requiring extensive cleanup. The Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) recently ordered the developers to conduct tests on the proposed building site, which detected elevated levels of these same chemicals, among others.