Tuesday, September 1, 2026

Pasadena Unified Says Longfellow Front-Lawn Trees Must Come Down to Complete Soil Cleanup

Pasadena Unified School District says several mature trees on the front lawn of Longfellow Elementary School will have to be removed to finish clearing lead-contaminated soil, the outcome of the preservation analysis its board ordered in June.

Six mature or protected trees remain on the front lawn, the district said in a written statement.

Contractors and arborists used air knifing, which uses compressed air and vacuum excavation to expose soil and roots, on all six, reaching about six inches deep and in some places as much as a foot. Soil tested at those depths still showed elevated lead, the district said.

District arborists concluded that removing more soil from around the root systems would destabilize structural roots and make tree failure likely, according to the district.

One of the six, identified as Tree 98, was not listed as protected in the tree inventory the district was given; the district said it applied the same preservation standard to that tree as to the others.

The district said the California Department of Toxic Substances Control reviewed its latest front-lawn excavation analysis and confirmed in an Aug. 31 letter that a significant quantity of contaminated soil remains within the trees’ critical root zones.

The district said the agency also stated that trees and vegetation impeding removal should be removed and replaced, and tied that step to a No Further Action determination for the site and to state matching funds for the Longfellow modernization project.

The board voted unanimously on June 18 to try to preserve up to 57 protected trees across the cleanup sites while allowing other removals to continue. The motion directed staff to evaluate alternative ways to remediate soil around certain mature protected trees; it did not guarantee that any tree would survive, and a district staff member said at the time that a tree whose roots were damaged during excavation would still be removed.

Michael Dunning, the district’s facilities director, told the board in June that the air excavation method takes longer. “It does come with some risk,” he said.

The district said it also examined bioremediation at Longfellow and found that the lead concentrations, the location of the contaminated soil and the requirements of the state-supervised cleanup made the approach neither sufficiently reliable nor feasible there, and that it can take years while the affected area stays closed. Leaving the soil in place beneath asphalt or concrete would require long-term institutional controls such as a land use covenant restricting how the property is maintained, excavated and renovated, the district said.

Benjamin Stanphill, a Southern California division chief at the state toxics department, told the board in June that the agency reviews the district’s cleanup proposals and could accept full soil removal, a long-term land use covenant, or a years-long phytoremediation or bioremediation. He said the agency was “somewhat agnostic to the trees.”

Opponents have argued the soil can be cleaned without felling the trees. Jessica Richards, a member of Pasadena’s Urban Forestry Advisory Committee speaking in her individual capacity, told the board the work “can be accomplished while preserving the trees.” Kristen Ochoa, a district parent and professor of medicine at UCLA, told the board she was representing a group called Friends of PUSD Trees and said it would seek a temporary restraining order under the California Environmental Quality Act.

Judge Joseph Lipner issued a preliminary injunction on Aug. 5 barring the city, its agents and anyone acting in concert with them from issuing stop-work orders against the district’s tree and soil removal at nine campuses, including Longfellow, or from enforcing the city’s tree protection ordinance there pending trial. The order also covers portions of the district’s Education Center at 351 S. Hudson Ave., and the district was required to post a $1,000 bond. A day earlier, the city had argued in a filing that the board resolution the district used to claim exemption from local tree rules was “invalid on its face.”

The injunction is preliminary and settles nothing about whether the ordinance applies. A trial setting conference in the case, No. 26STCP02735, is scheduled for Oct. 30 in Department 833; no trial date has been set.

Longfellow is one of 11 district properties where soil carrying Eaton Fire contaminants is being removed and replaced under state oversight. District officials have said about 8,000 cubic yards must come out across those sites. Longfellow’s share is roughly 122 truckloads, third-largest after Blair High School and San Rafael Elementary. Contaminants of concern at the sites include lead, arsenic and polycyclic aromatic compounds.

Longfellow students are attending classes at the district’s Allendale campus for 2026-27 while at their school at 1065 E. Washington Blvd. undergoes a $37.9 million modernization funded by Measure O.

The district said it has committed to planting at least one replacement tree for every tree removed, following its 2026 Landscape and Exterior Space Guidelines, which emphasize native, drought-tolerant and locally adapted species and fire-resilient design. It described the Longfellow removals as an exception within a broader commitment to canopy growth, and said the work “remains fundamentally a soil-remediation project, not a tree-removal project.”

The board took up a resolution on Aug. 27 that would commit the district to work toward 30% mature tree canopy over outdoor areas used for student learning, play and circulation by 2035. District sites range between 8% and 15% coverage, according to a 2023 California Schoolyard Tree Canopy Equity study cited in the measure, which carries no appropriation and states that budget reductions have cut grounds staffing by roughly 50%, “affecting the District’s ability to maintain its existing tree inventory.”

The case over the city’s authority to halt the work returns to court Oct. 30.