Oceanside

Oceanside school trustees have agreed to accept $125,000 from the city to settle a lawsuit that arose in 1981 after three schools atop an abandoned city dump were evacuated because of leaking methane gas.

The district filed a claim more than five years ago for $250,000 in an effort to recoup the cost of closing the three schools, which sit on the old Mission Avenue landfill.

Jefferson Junior High, Mission Elementary and Clair Burgener School for the handicapped were shut down for more than a year after toxic gas experts warned school officials about the leaking methane, which is caused by decomposing garbage.

The schools remained closed until 1982, when the city constructed a system that extracts the methane from the ground and burns it.