Soil

Fred Ortega Geotechnical engineers began probing the ground beneath Inverness Drive with specialized equipment this week, in preparation for repair work to begin on the damaged roadway. Crews with Diaz Yourman Associates used seismic equipment to determine soil layers in preparations for soil borings scheduled for Monday and Tuesday, La Canada Flintridge City Engineer Ying Kwan said. "This work is to determine what is backfill under there and what is original soil," Kwan said, adding that the borings will dictate what options engineers will take in fixing the road.

Cerritos Elementary School third-graders loosed up beds of flowers with their hands and shovels Wednesday in order to make room for a new vegetable garden in the campus courtyard. The students honored Earth Day by spending time outside the classroom, clearing up plants and prepping the soil for their garden. “It’s kind of fun because we could learn how to plant a garden the right way,” 9-year-old Kimberly Depaz said. “We can tell our moms to buy us seeds, so we can plant our own gardens.

The City Council will decide tonight whether to extend an investigation into local sites found to be dumping a cancer-causing substance into the soil, and ultimately into the city's water supply. The city has already spent $100,000 since December 2003 to test the levels of chromium 6 at 250 sites in Glendale and surrounding areas. Los Angeles and Burbank have each kicked in the same amount of money to fund the study, conducted by the engineering firm CH2MHill.

Darleene Barrientos Construction of a temporary training facility at the city's now-defunct New York electrical substation stumbled over a pool-sized hole when neighbors raised concerns about possible soil contamination. Excavation and construction at the New York substation on Altura Avenue has been suspended until Glendale Water & Power officials can fully appraise neighbor's plans for the plant that was decommissioned in 2002, electric services administrator Ramon Abueg said.

Amber Willard NORTHEAST GLENDALE -- Like many urban gardeners, Salomon and Alma Schmidt have to battle rocky soil at their hillside home, as well as hungry critters like rats and rabbits. Despite the odds against them, the couple has a garden that, so far, has produced amazing results. "I'd say that one's about 50 pounds, and there's two more big ones," Salomon Schmidt said earlier this week, pulling away green vines to show bulbous pumpkins that aren't done growing.

NORTHEAST GLENDALE ? Firefighters spent more than an hour meticulously placing wooden boards along the sides of a 10-foot trench dug into the hills just behind the Glendale Sports Complex. At the bottom of the trench was a heap of soil under which firefighters pretended a person lay stuck. "The whole idea of this simulation is to understand the manpower it takes to do a rescue," Glendale Fire Capt. Steven Parrish said. About a handful of Glendale firefighters trained in urban search and rescue performed a simulated trench rescue on Thursday morning.

The city is still working on future actions for the property at 350l Ocean View Blvd. which has sparked concern in the Sparr Heights community, Councilman John Drayman said this week. Drayman said the former site of Bowman?s Cleaners has had a stop work order on new construction after alarms were raised about the work underway. The project was given an over-the-counter exemption from design review after the owners indicated they were doing all work within the footprint of the existing building.

Buck Wargo GLENDALE -- Homeowner activists are raising concerns about contamination at the site of the proposed expansion of The Walt Disney Co. campus in Glendale. Rob Sharkey, former president of the Glendale Homeowners Coordinating Council, said he worries the 125-acre campus on the industrial center may be a harbinger for cancer because it is part of a federal Superfund site. He raised his concerns Tuesday before the Glendale City Council when he spoke of the need for a public hearing to talk about the environmental report evaluating the project.

Beautiful gold and blue flowers that decorate Mountain Avenue Elementary school grounds are due to the diligent digging and plowing of the soil by volunteers. On a recent Saturday more than 30 families took part in the 11th semi-annual Beautification Day that was held at the school. The Beautification Day is held in October and April as part of a strategic plan that looks at all aspects of the school's mission which includes creating a beautiful and ecologically friendly atmosphere.

Seeing trucks and drilling equipment, like those that are on Prospect Avenue and Sunset Street this week, have been commonplace around Crescenta Valley since the discovery of MTBE in well seven in August of last year. At that time Crescenta Valley Water District shut down well seven and began working with the Regional Water Board, Environmental Protection Agency and California Department of Health to identify, contain and clean MTBE from the water system. In the early 1990s the chemical compound, MTBE, was used as a fuel additive in gasoline.