By Melody Hanatani
Daily Press Staff Writer

MID-CITY — Birds seem to love to do their business here.

For the past few years, the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District’s Transportation Facility has been under aerial assault — bird droppings that is.

On Thursday, the school board waged a war of its own on birds, awarding a $56,642 bid to Karcher Environmental Inc. for “the remediation of Avian Fecal Matter.”

Apparently, the district has tired of serving as a target.

“The transportation office has become overrun with pigeons and seagulls, and it’s a safety hazard because the droppings are where people have to be,” said Superintendent Dianne Talarico on Friday.

The problem concerns an open-aired repair shop where birds, specifically pigeons, have been nesting at the facility on 19th Street and Olympic Boulevard.

“It’s been off and on for a couple of years,” said Director of Transportation Neal Abramson. “It’s gotten bad this year.”

Abramson said the problem has died down over the past few months and said the birds tend to attack during spring and summer when they are nesting eggs. The facility has managed to steer clear this past week.

Due to the high volume of bird droppings, Abramson said the staff finds itself constantly cleaning during the peak season.

Karcher is expected to install netting to prevent the bird droppings. The timeline for the installation has yet to be determined, but will be performed after work hours and on weekends.

Other measures have been taken in the past to scare away the birds, including the installation of spikes on top of the building.

“Those don’t always work,” Abramson said. “Those pigeons are pretty smart.”