Communication, trust and transparency became central themes during the public comment portion of the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District Board of Education Meeting on Thursday, March 20, at Malibu City Hall.
The Malibu City Council Chambers filled near its capacity with Malibu residents concerned about the District’s handling of the polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) contamination affecting Malibu schools.
More than two hours were devoted to discussing the issue, although it was not on the Board’s agenda for that night.
The contention resulting from the issue has strained, if not tainted, relations between Malibu parents and the District. In the past, Malibu residents have criticized the District’s handling of the issue in terms of lacking in proper communication and transparency, as well as the scope of testing proposed to be performed.
“The keys to success are full-scale testing, full transparency and real-time communication,” said Matt DeNicola, a Malibu parent, during his public comment time. “This is 2014: I can find out when the bus isn’t going to be on time, but I can’t figure what’s going on with the high school toxin
levels.”
DeNicola also criticized the District’s spending of $500,000 on the issue, saying, “we are in no better place than we were in October of 2013.”
To date, the District has entered into an agreement with environmental engineering firm Environ International Corporation to develop a testing and cleanup plan, under the oversight of the California Department of Toxic Substances Control, but a plan or timeline has yet to be developed.
“I’m talking to Environ about getting that plan done and we are working with the EPA and the DTSC, so please know that if we could test right now and have a plan, we would do it,” SMMUSD superintendent Sandra Lyon said. “One of the things we’ve heard from the community is to make sure it’s thorough, and we are doing that.”
Jennifer DeNicola – who served as a parent representative on the Malibu Schools Environmental Task Force that originally investigated the PCB contamination issue at Malibu High School – criticized what she said was the District’s lack of urgency regarding the issue.
“It took them about two months to make a contract, [with Environ] and that’s two months of our kids and teachers going to school and nothing getting done,” she said. “I’m upset about the timeline and the fact that there’s no transparency or sense of urgency.”
Jennifer also used her public comment time to convey that Malibu Unites, a newly formed nonprofit advocacy group, wished to hire its own third-party remediation contractor that would work with the District, Environ and the DTSC to assist in the planning, testing and cleanup procedures.
It’s a move that Jennifer said could rebuild lost trust between parents and the District by ensuring the accuracy and diligence of testing and cleanup. “The only way [the District] can rebuild trust is to get an independent expert that represents the parents and teachers,” Jennifer said. “Having somebody that is advocating for our position, to ensure everything is done accurately and it’s done properly and comprehensively is vital to building trust and knowing our schools are safe.”
Board member Laurie Lieberman – defending Lyon and the District – said parents, a teacher and a scientist working for the City of Malibu were included in the interview panel that selected Environ, and said she felt claims of a lack of transparency were without merit.
“This was a very transparent process, and the group came to an agreement to hire this particular firm [Environ],” Lieberman said. “I want you all to be reassured that the process has been transparent and the concerns about that, I think, shouldn’t exist and are somewhat disingenuous.”
Lieberman also called for an end to “allegations of conspiracy and incompetence” directed at Lyon and the District, which she said are “unfounded and border on slanderous and libelous . . . they’re simply not getting us anywhere and aren’t helping us create a transparent, collaborative and communicative process.”
Lieberman, however, suggested the District review its communication processes, especially in terms of how it reacts to toxic contamination issues that may arise at its other schools. “While we have followed policy here and have followed what is required in the state . . . I think we should at least look at and examine those requirements and see if we should have some other kind of requirements for notification,” she said.

Reiterating their distrust toward the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District, and pressing hard for new toxins testing at Malibu High School, 50 parents and students last night floated a plan to choose their own environmental testing expert – who would work alongside the district-appointed environmental firm, Environ.

Controversy has gripped the pricey coastal community since October, when it was reported that Malibu school officials had failed to fully alert parents or teachers to toxins unearthed at the high school during a 2010 environmental review. The toxins – including PCB’s, chlordane, arsenic, lead and others – prompted the school district to order major soil removal in 2011. Some critics claim the toxins caused numerous ailments and even cancer among teachers and students.

Environ is now working under the supervision of the federal Environmental Protection Agency Region 9 and the California Department of Toxic Substances Control to ascertain if the high school property is safe.

But outspoken critics of the district’s past behavior say that’s not good enough.

A new group of parents, teachers, medical and scientific advisors, calling itself Malibu Unites for Healthy Schools, has launched a website at www.AmericaUnites.com and is seeking direct input into the toxins-testing process and any cleanup that may be needed.

Jennifer deNicola, president of Malibu Unites, told the board:

“The current process you have in place for the community and parents to verify the accuracy of the district’s work will create a stigma that will taint the campus for years to come. It is in everyone’s best interest to remove that stigma, which can only occur if the affected community can verify the testing, the results of the testing and remediation with their own expert.”

DeNicola says her group has interviewed environmental firms and is still seeking its own outside expert. They’re also demanding that the district communicate with them promptly, practice full transparency and that their group be given immediate access to raw information, the results of comprehensive testing and any identification made of the possible source of the toxins.

More than a dozen parents voiced their concern to the board and to Malibu City Councilmember John Sibert and Hamish Patterson, a candidate for city council.

Patterson told LA Weekly:

“I think it’s real simple … that testing must commence, that’s just phase one of everything getting alright. If the test showed that it’s a clean bill of health, then everything is alright. But if it’s not, it opens up a Pandora’s Box of remediation. How are you going to handle that, what are we going to do with our kids? And I think that’s why the school district’s been dragging its feet, and the city council’s been dragging its feet and the teachers union’s been dragging their feet. And when they say they’ve only known for six months, that’s not true at all. When is it alright? When people stop lying to a community.”

DeNicola says, “We are moving forward and we are doing it in a positive way.”

The Weekly reported earlier this week that while some Malibu residents fear that chemicals found in soil and window putty at the school may have caused thyroid cancer among three teachers, such fears may be unfounded.

The National Cancer Institute and many other cancer experts agree that the only known environmental cause of thyroid cancer is radiation. No radiation source has been found at Malibu High School, and most thyroid cancer is believed by scientists to be hereditary.

The newspaper also quoted thyroid cancer expert Marcia Brose, director of the Thyroid Cancer Therapeutics Program at the University of Pennsylvania, who says thyroid cancer is very common and, “it’s not surprising that you might discover some people who have had thyroid cancer, and they might know somebody [who has it] nearby. Unless there’s really clear radiation risks in the area, I don’t think that there’s any evidence for thinking that their thyroid cancer is caused by an environmental toxin, particularly.”

Brose also adds, however, that science is always discovering new connections, “So never say never.”

EPA senior policy analyst Hugh Kaufman in Washington, D.C., an outspoken critic of the way Malibu High School officials and school district leaders have conducted themselves, noted that Brose has in the past worked as a consultant to Bayer, a producer of chemicals.

Kaufman says there is room to challenge the conventional wisdom among scientists and cancer institutes. Kaufman notes that some peer-reviewed research into people who lived or worked around high levels of PCBs and other toxins shows that they may be susceptible to some forms of thyroid disease – such as goiter and overactive and under-active thyroids.

One peer-reviewed study by Lawrence M. Schell, Mia V. Gallo, Melinda Denham and others, for instance, notes that “It is well documented that acute exposure to high levels of persistent organic pollutants, such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), p,p′-dichlorophenyldichloroethylene (p,p′-DDE), and hexachlorobenzene (HCB), can affect human health including thyroid function.”