School Transformer to Be Moved : Safety: Officials respond to concerns about the electromagnetic field in a Dixie Canyon classroom.

SHERMAN OAKS —  Pressured by parents and a kindergarten teacher worried about potential health threats, school district officials will move an electrical transformer away from a bungalow classroom at Dixie Canyon Avenue Elementary School.

But the action, announced at a parents’ meeting Thursday, did little to allay fears or temper outrage over possible long-term harm from the electromagnetic field of the transformer, which was installed less than a foot from the classroom wall.

“The damage is done,” said Julie Alpert, who has a 6-year-old daughter in the class, as she wiped away tears outside the school.

“Parents assume the district is looking out for them,” said Carol Wynans, who also has a young daughter in the class. “I’m here to say they’re not.”

Electromagnetic fields, often shortened to EMF, are present wherever an electric current passes through a wire. Several scientific studies have suggested that increased cases of childhood cancer may occur in locations with elevated magnetic fields. A smaller number of studies have found no connection, and the issue is still the subject of scientific debate.

The district has no standards for acceptable levels of EMF or regulations about how near a transformer may be located to a building.

District officials said the agreement to move the transformer at Dixie Canyon was not an admission that the EMF level was too high. In fact, there is no agreement about what level of magnetic field exposure--if any--poses a health hazard. In the average house, EMFs are under 2 milligauss.

Some experts say a safe level may be as low as 1 milligauss, which would be found about a foot from an electric toaster. EMF levels drop off sharply with distance from the electrical source. In Room 27 at Dixie Canyon Elementary, where Christina Chan taught kindergarten to 33 5- and 6-year-olds, the highest measurement taken by the Department of Water and Power in December was 107 milligauss at the teacher’s chair.

On Thursday, in a DWP demonstration for reporters, a hand-held meter registered 185 to 200 milligauss at a bulletin board, which hangs in the classroom on the opposite side of the wall adjacent to the transformer.

Monday the children were moved to the school library after the EMF readings were announced.

District officials said Thursday that the findings at Dixie Canyon prompted a survey of site plans at other schools to identify similar transformer configurations. To compensate for increased enrollment since 1988, the Los Angeles Unified School District has added as many as 100 portable classrooms with air conditioning to its campuses. Transformers needed to provide power to the air conditioners are often located near classrooms, courtyards and hallways for security and cost-effectiveness, said Doug Brown, the district’s facilities director.

“We try to put transformers reasonably close to classrooms,” Brown said. “It minimizes the cost of underground work.”

Nearly 50 parents gathered at Thursday’s meeting in the school auditorium, some shouting questions at representatives from the school district and the DWP. But many, including some district officials, left with more questions than answers.

“We still don’t know what this all means,” said Susie Wong, director of the district’s environmental, health and safety branch, after the meeting. “No one will give us any guidance.”

“I want to see things change,” kindergarten teacher Chan said. “I want to see regulations made throughout the district. The only thing holding them back is the money, but you can’t compare the life of a child to money.”

It will cost about $100,000 to move the transformer, which converts electrical current from 480-volt high-power transmission lines to the 120-volt domestic standard, to another site on the campus.

The district has tested only two of its 840 school sites and centers for EMF levels related to electrical transformers, both at the request of parents. In June, parents at Mayall Street Elementary School in North Hills demanded that a transformer on the playground be tested. After the DWP registered readings of 600 milligauss, the district installed a fence three feet from the transformer to keep children at a distance.