City's schools to bury 230 cases of beef

School districts across Washington are making plans to destroy hundreds of pounds of beef that are part of a nationwide recall.

In Seattle, the state's largest district with 45,000 students, officials were filling out paperwork with King County solid waste and public health agencies to bury about 230 cases of recalled beef at the Cedar Hills landfill, schools spokesman David Tucker said.

The Spokane School District intends to dispose of the beef in a municipal incinerator.

An investigation into allegations that a California slaughterhouse mistreated sick cows caused the U.S. Department of Agriculture to announce the recall of 143 million pounds of frozen beef from Hallmark-Westland Meat Packing Co.

Across the state, about 70 percent of school districts participate in the USDA lunch program and are disposing of recalled beef products, mostly in landfills, Skip Skinner, food distribution supervisor for the state superintendent of public instruction, said Thursday.

Washington officials are holding about 340,000 pounds of beef that was scheduled to be shipped and estimate an additional 250,000 pounds of the meat will be destroyed by school districts statewide.