By breaking these rules that the school literally signed off on, it creates a troubling situation when a reporter is trying to ferret out the truth about radioactive and chemical contaminants buried under the school’s athletic fields and complex since school officials maintain, in a variety of ways, that none were ever buried there let alone are there now.
When school officials tell the parents of the school that the VA and PricewaterhouseCoopers have both publicly disavowed the report of radioactive waste, or waste of any kind, being buried under the fields, despite evidence in these Waxman-supplied documents to the contrary, it adds to doubts as to the school’s veracity.
One of the main reasons that EnviroReporter.com was created in the first place was to show doubters of our Brentwood nuke dump investigation the solid evidence that makes up this body of work, regardless of the trustworthiness of the folks we’ve interviewed. With that in mind, one photograph EnviroReporter.com acquired clearly shows Brentwood School alumni drinking alcohol on Shared Property of the VA.
P. 21/48:
The operative phrase in the below snippet is the following contractual sentence that seems to suggest that any radioactive and/or chemical waste contaminating soon-to-be Brentwood School fields is the problem of the school and not the VA.
“However, assuming the Sharing Partner decides to proceed, the Sharing Partner shall be deemed to have inspected and known the condition of the Shared Property, and understands that the same is hereby shared without any representations or warranty by the Government whatsoever and without obligation on the part of the Government to make any alterations, repairs, or additions thereto, prior to occupancy by Sharing Partner.”
P. 22/48:
The following snippet, which includes the below contractual sentences, makes clear that Brentwood School is and was responsible for the drainage system created in the beginning of building their athletic complex. This means that the school may have had a direct hand in making the decision to bury rather than excavate biomedical waste from under their football field despite school officials’ comments to the contrary.
“The Sharing Partner shall be responsible for the cost of all utilities, repairs and maintenance associated with its use of the Shared Property… The Sharing Partner shall be responsible for all costs associated with the installation of the utility system connections on DVA property.”
P. 28/48:
Indemnifying the VA and ignoring the hazardous wastes problem may prove to be a costly mistake to Brentwood School: “The Sharing Partner shall indemnify and hold the Government harmless from any and all claims resulting from the negligent acts or omissions of the Sharing Partner, its officers, agents, students, employees, guests or invitees other than those who are DVA employees, patients and necessary attendants of guests.”
The full clause:
P. 31/48:
Rent charges for the 20 acres.
P. 36/48:
If Brentwood School breaks agreement, VA is not liable for the capital improvements undertaken by the school on the property.
P. 39/48:
The following, and final, snippet of this web page is crucial to the understanding of if and when Brentwood School knew, or should have known, about contaminants under its Shared Property fields. According to this section, the “VA, without expense to the Sharing Partner, will have qualified personnel present as appropriate on the Shared Property during grading by the Shared Partner to observe the grading activities for the potential presence of hazardous materials on the property. If such materials are encountered, the parties will consult and mutually agrees (sic) as to how the materials will be evaluated.”
The bad news for Brentwood School is that this says that they were jointly responsible with the VA for deciding to not excavate the bags of syringes found on what was to become the football field and to simply cover it with asphalt. It also suggests that all other reports of hazardous materials at the site, evidenced in other Waxman-supplied documents, were also under their purview, which makes sense since the school was paying for the construction of the $2.5 million athletic complex anyway.
The school, with its repeated assertions that no radioactive biomedical waste is under its fields, or that if it and non-radioactive waste actually was then it was entirely removed, seems questionable at best especially in light of these apparent violations of the contract with the VA regarding this Shared Property.
The good news for Brentwood School is that should hazardous materials be discovered in the Shared Property, then the VA will suspend collection of rent until they are remediated. In other words, if the athletic fields need to be excavated, Brentwood School will not have to pay rent until the work is completed, surely a small compensation for what is beginning to look like a school immersed in scandal that it could have possibly avoided were administrators during the time of construction, and personnel now, had chosen a truthful and transparent path in dealing with the toxics issues now plaguing the institution.
Exclusive 2019 Update: VICTORY AT THE VA – West LA Veterans Administration master plan protects old nuclear dump from development
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