Rachel Roth
Throughout the 1980s, Pierce College was home to an active dairy. Even though the facility was torn down in the late 1990s, the recent grading and excavation of the grounds in March has uncovered remnants of the farm that once was.
In the area adjacent to the the new Child Development Center, near the intersection of Mason Avenue and Olympic Drive, construction workers discovered a pit where manure — and the occasional dead animal — were disposed of.
“As soon as (construction workers) saw the manure and the carcass they said ‘Wait a second, you don’t pay us enough to do this,'” Garber said of the plastic-wrapped bovine body workers uncovered. “So we determined there was a potential health and safety issue, although there really isn’t because they are just natural materials.”
Garber wanted the carcass, and the roughly 250,000 tons of dirt, to be disposed of “as quickly as possible so not to create any concern about the Child Development Center and any cross contamination.”
In order to do that, Garber had to ask the Los Angeles Community College District board of trustees for emergency action, which meant bypassing the extensive bid process and hiring North State Environmental, Inc. for $222,158 using funds from Proposition A/AA and Measure J.
Emergency action is granted when there is a danger to health and safety, or because classes will be disrupted.
The Emergency Resolution was ratified yesterday, after the fact, at the LACCD board meeting at Los Angeles City College and required a unanimous vote from all six board members.
Garber said the decision to ratify the resolution is similar to the one made regarding the pool. When asbestos-covered pipes were discovered, they needed to be disposed of. Garber said that Pierce’s contract wih Hazardous Material Removal and Disposal had expired and he needed permission from the board to re-hire them.
“Rather than go through the whole bid process we need to move quickly,” he said. “The main purpose it to get it done.”
Done quickly it was. Garber said that the everything was removed the same day it was found. He also said that no other carcasses have been discovered.
