SEACLIFF : Toxic Waste Cleanup Options Explained

California environmental officials plan to meet with Seacliff residents today to explain how they will clean up the remaining toxic hydrazine that spilled near the beachside community in the July 28 derailment of a Southern Pacific freight train.

The wreck smashed a rail car carrying drums of the solvent against a Ventura Freeway overpass, forcing the evacuation of 49 houses at Seacliff and closure of the freeway during the five-day cleanup.

In the next month, most of the remaining hydrazine evaporated out of the ground, said Richard Varenchik, a spokesman for the California Environmental Protection Agency.

When chemists tested the area last August, traces of hydrazine remained under the repaired rail bed in concentrations of only 4.2 p.p.m., far less than enough to sicken anyone exposed to it, Varenchik said Friday. He said chemists found no traces in the air of fumes from the solvent, which is used in manufacturing products ranging from photo chemicals to pharmaceuticals.

At 3 today, Cal-EPA officials will explain cleanup options to the Seacliff residents, Varenchik said.

The options include doing nothing and letting remaining traces of hydrazine evaporate; churning up the soil to let any hydrazine evaporate more quickly, or digging up and disposing of the tainted soil, he said.

Disposal “seems kind of like an unneeded option, if the hydrazine was as low as it was in August,” Varenchik said.