The dough, re, mi’s of pizza WEEKEND | 18 NOVEMBER 15, 2013 VOLUME 21, NO. 42
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MOVIES | 21
Sewer may be source of Evandale hot spots TESTING FINDS HIGH TCE CONCENTRATIONS IN FOUR LOCATIONS By Daniel DeBolt
“It does not appear to be surface release, so it appears to be nvironmental Protection coming down the sewer,” EPA Agency officials told resi- official Alana Lee told over 100 dents Tuesday that the residents in the city’s Adobe only plausible explanation so far building on the evening of Nov. for the mysterious “hot spots” of 12. “We don’t believe there is a sky-high levels of toxics under continuing release into the sewer Evandale Avenue is a leaking lines at this time. No one in this sewer line or storm drain — area is currently using TCE.” potentially placing the blame The EPA has tested over 95 on semiconductor manufactur- homes in the Leong Drive and ers once located on Whisman Evandale Avenue area for eviRoad, dence of airborne Previously there TCE “vapor had been some intrusion,” which ‘We don’t speculation that can cause canbelieve there is a cer, birth defects the hot spots discovered late last and other health year — which continuing release problems. Six are not connecthomes have been into the sewer ed to the nearby found with toxic 1.5-mile long lines at this time. TCE vapors — all trichloroethylene on Evandale Ave(TCE) plume left nue, EPA officials No one in this by semiconducsaid. tor manufacturarea is currently Two home ers — had been have had levels using TCE.’ caused by “midhigh enough for night dumping” the EPA to have ALANA LEE on the top soil. to special venBut there is no tilation systems evidence of the TCE, used as an installed to draw the vapors out industrial solvent, having been from under the home and vent dumped on the site: it was all them to the roof-line, Lee said. found more than 10 feet under- Both homes are located near ground. the Evandale Avenue hot spot This could prove what longtime a stone’s throw from Whisman toxic cleanup watchdog Lenny Road, on the north side of the Siegel believes to have been the street. With the ventilation sysresult of dumping by Fairchild tems installed, they now have Semiconductor and other pol- clean air samples. The highest luters now responsible for the level found in the homes was 18 massive MEW Superfund site micrograms of TCE vapor per roughly bordered by Whisman cubic meter of air. Road, Ellis Avenue and MiddleTrace amounts have been found field Road. In the late 1970s, local in four other homes below the newspapers ran stories about the EPA’s indoor cleanup threshold spills into storm and sewer lines, of 1 micro gram per cubic meter which were traced to Fairchild, of air. and once killed 100 fish in SteSee EPA TCE, page 6 vens Creek.
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MICHELLE LE
Students from Bullis Charter School play on the playground structures at the Egan School campus. Conflicts over shared use of the sites have bubbled over in a public war of words.
LASD, Bullis trade hostile letters SCHOOLS CRITICIZE EACH OTHER IN LATEST PUBLIC COMMUNICATIONS By Nick Veronin
A
little more than a month after officials from the Los Altos School District publicized their proposal to partner with Bullis Charter School on a bond measure to
build two new schools — one for LASD and one for BCS — the district has issued another open letter demanding that the charter shape up or else. According to the letter, dated Nov. 4 and signed by dis-
trict board of trustees president Doug Smith, the charter school has repeatedly violated the terms of its agreement with the district. In the letter, BCS See BULLIS, page 11
Council to lease site for hotel, offices PARCEL AT 101, MOFFETT COULD EARN $2 MILLION A YEAR TO FOR CITY By Daniel DeBolt
T
he City Council decided Tuesday that a new hotel and office space would be the best use of a forested piece of city-owned property along Highway 101 at Moffett Boulevard. With Mayor John Inks opposed, the council voted 6-1 to seek hotel and office development proposals for the 6.69-acre
INSIDE
site — which also runs along Stevens Creek. It was a Santa Clara County-owned vector control yard until it was bought by the city for $9.5 million in 2009. The City Council has long had the goal of leasing it to a developer to pad the city’s budget, which has seen costs growing faster than revenues for years. “I just want to see the property
working for us as soon as possible,” said council member Jac Siegel. “It’s been sitting there for many years.” Council members had the choice of selling the property for $11 million or leasing it for an estimated annual payment of $2 million a year, according See LEASE, page 12
VIEWPOINT 16 | GOINGS ON 22 | MARKETPLACE 23 | REAL ESTATE 25