Gore Inspects McColl, Calls Cap Proposal ‘Outrageous’

Tennessee Sen. Albert Gore Jr., after touring the McColl hazardous-waste dump site in Fullerton Wednesday, said that a proposal by five oil companies to cap the site is “totally outrageous and unacceptable.”

Gore, who was in Orange County as part of a four-day California swing in his bid for the 1988 Democratic presidential nomination, said the capping proposal was a bid to “adopt the principle of out-of-sight, out-of-mind.”

“They don’t live next to the site,” Gore said at a press conference he staged at the dump. “It’s easier for them to put a cap on it and attempt to forget about it. Those who have homes near this site have to deal with the odors, the contamination of water.”

$12.5 Million Cost

The five oil companies--Shell, Arco, Texaco, Unocal and Phillips--have been held responsible for dumping aviation waste at the abandoned World War II dump. Representatives of the companies told about 175 nearby residents Monday that a $12.5-million cleanup would include a cap--a seven-foot-deep soil and fabric cover to control noxious odors and prevent contact with sludge.

But residents protested that a cap would be a “quick fix” and a temporary solution. Tests have indicated that the soil at the dump contains sulfuric acid, benzene and arsenic. Earlier this month, health officials also said ground water had been contaminated with low-level concentrations of several chemicals.

Several nearby residents joined Gore as he walked around the gravel dumping grounds, inspecting barrels of earth collected for testing and gazing past the chain-link fence to the Los Coyotes Golf Course, which separates the dump from homes on Tiffany Place and Fairgreen and Sunny Ridge drives.

“Well, it’s political,” Harry Smith, a nine-year resident of Fairgreen Drive and a Republican, said of Gore’s visit.

Smith added, however, that he was “pleased and impressed” with Gore’s remarks: “I think he basically reflects the view of most of us in this community. We don’t want it capped.”

Gore said he thought that capping the site “would diminish the impetus for a permanent solution.” Among the other proposals being discussed to clean up the site, he said, are new high-temperature incineration of contaminated earth, which renders certain chemicals inert.

Calls for More Research

But Gore said more research is needed to see what chemicals are on the McColl site and whether the incineration would work.

Gore said he had chosen McColl for the site of a “major statement about the mismanagement” of the federal Superfund and about other environmental issues, a printed copy of which he distributed to reporters. McColl is on the list of about 700 sites nationally targeted for cleanup.

He said McColl is “an example of the nationwide problem, which desperately needs to be addressed.”

Saying that just 20 sites on the national priority list have been cleaned up by the Reagan Administration in eight years, Gore pledged to make toxic cleanups a high priority if elected. He is chairman of the Environmental and Energy Study Conference, which investigates groundwater pollution, transportation of hazardous materials and other conservation efforts.

The visit to Orange County was Gore’s second since he announced he was running for the Democratic nomination. John Hanna, chairman of the Orange County Democratic Party, who accompanied Gore on the tour of McColl, said that Gore was once considered too young (he’s 39) to be taken seriously.

But recently, Gore has become “more than an oddity” because of his strength in the South, Hanna said.