Don't Mess Around with The Toxic Crusaders

By Deborah Elder Brown/Los Angeles

Thick notebooks of test results, chemical analyses and groundwater-safety studies. Not your typical teenage reading. But Maria Perez and Fabiola Tostado, both 15, and Nevada Dove, 18, pore over this stuff as closely as most kids read music 'zines. Some nights you can find them at Nevada's house, reading the latest report out loud, highlighting anything that sounds weird. Her brother calls them the Toxic Crusaders, and with good reason. As three young members of Concerned Citizens of South Central Los Angeles (CCSCLA), Maria, Fabiola and Nevada are activists in the cause of environmental health. They've handed out containers in which oil can be recycled and given warnings about lead poisoning. Most of all, they're agitating for the temporary closing and cleanup of Jefferson New Middle School.

Jefferson is the first public school to open in South Central Los Angeles in 30 years. Built on a site that was once home to a maker of refrigerator shells and, earlier, to a defense contractor that made fuel tanks for World War II fighter planes, it serves about 2,000 students, mostly poor, mostly minority. But across the street is the former home of a chrome-plating shop, a site so hazardous that it is scheduled for cleanup under the federal Superfund program. During construction of the school, it was discovered that the soil and groundwater under the building were contaminated with hexavalent chromium, a tasteless, odorless and colorless toxin. Exposure through food, air or drinking water can cause skin rashes, kidney and liver ailments and--at high enough levels--brain damage and even death.

That's what alarms Maria, Fabiola and Nevada. They don't go to school at Jefferson, nor do their brothers and sisters, but they are outraged just the same. Says Nevada: "It's terrifying that these kids are going to a school that's contaminated. In a way they are my brothers and sisters, because they are African-American and Hispanic children who one day may be my neighbors."

Maria and Fabiola worked for Clean & Green, a community-beautification program, before joining CCSCLA. Nevada is a seven-year veteran whose mother Melodie Dove is a CCSCLA leader. Formed in 1985 as one of the first African-American environmental groups in the U.S., CCSCLA is a force in the growing "environmental justice" movement, which questions why sources of pollution always seem to be located in poor neighborhoods.

CCSCLA campaigned for months to keep Jefferson New Middle School from opening, and the group's junior members were on the front lines. Maria, Fabiola and Nevada called government agencies, passed out flyers and went door to door to alert parents. But the school district determined that Jefferson was safe and opened its classrooms last July. Says school-district spokesman Erik Nasarenko: "The problem with the groundwater and the soils deep beneath the surface...does not affect people on the surface."

The Toxic Crusaders were not convinced. The day the school opened, the girls were on hand with a fact sheet about chromium. As they tried to pass it out, the police made them move 100 ft. from the school. "I think they were expecting us to do a protest or something," says Maria, "but we just wanted to hand out information."

The next month the girls called a community meeting, inviting representatives from the school district and environmental agencies. After Maria, Fabiola and Nevada got through with them, they may have been sorry they went. When a schools official claimed that in an emergency, Jefferson's children would be evacuated to 9200 South Broadway, the girls pulled out photos proving that this was the address of a vacant lot. "We really nailed him down," Fabiola recalls. "We said, 'If you made a mistake like that, what other mistakes have you made?'"

Among the girls' allies is state senator Tom Hayden, who has taken up the issue of toxins in schools. Says Hayden: "They're very focused, very educated, very driven to understand the way the system works around them." The girls have been regulars at hearings the senator has held. Los Angeles plans to build 51 schools over 10 years--some of them possibly on old industrial sites.

Unafraid of confronting their elders, Maria, Fabiola and Nevada are proud of what they've done--and plan to keep doing. "We're the new generation," says Nevada. "One day you're going to have to stand up on your own two feet for something you believe in. Why not get an early start?"

--By Deborah Elder Brown/Los Angeles