Speedup Urged in Removal of Tainted Soil : Arco: A county supervisor wants work near the entrance to Channel Islands Harbor completed within eight months.

Ventura County Supervisor John K. Flynn on Friday urged Arco and county regulators to speed up the removal of contaminated soil from a former gas station site at the entrance to Channel Islands Harbor in Oxnard.

Some county officials have predicted that the cleanup will not end until 1994, Flynn said. But the supervisor insisted that the cleanup can and should be finished within eight months.

Although no gasoline is believed to have leaked into the bay, the supervisor said the high mounds of tainted soil, surrounded by a chain-link fence, present an eyesore to visitors approaching the harbor.

Flynn said he is anxious to see a new project developed on the valuable county-owned land. “We’re losing about $100,000 a year because we can’t use that property,” he said.

On Tuesday, Flynn, chairman of the five-member Board of Supervisors, plans to ask his colleagues to join in recommending that the project be expedited by all agencies involved and that the board be briefed regularly on the progress of the cleanup.

In a letter to the board, Flynn said, “This particular parcel is very important because it is located at the entrance to the harbor. The unsightly appearance of the excavated site and the piles of contaminated soil (are) obviously not a good first impression for harbor visitors.”

The gas station was situated on a half-acre site at the southwest corner of Victoria Avenue and Channel Islands Boulevard. The Atlantic Richfield Co.’s 25-year lease expired Dec. 31, and the company chose not to renew it.

Since then the company has been dismantling the station and removing its underground storage tanks.

County officials have determined that about 7,000 to 8,000 gallons of gasoline leaked from the aging tanks into the soil beneath the station, said Frank Anderson, manager of Channel Islands Harbor.

Arco has been removing tainted soil, taking it to a landfill and replacing it with fresh earth, said Annie Reutinger, a spokeswoman for the oil company.

She said the company plans to spend about one more week digging at the site and submitting soil samples to the county. After the county’s environmental staff reviews these samples, Arco will return to spend one more week finishing the soil cleanup, Reutinger said.

The company then must return quarterly through 1994 to take additional ground water samples to make sure no contamination remains, the Arco spokeswoman said.

“We’re doing everything we’re supposed to, according to the county regulations,” Reutinger said. “Arco feels it’s moving as fast as it can for its part of the job.”

Joe Tully, Arco’s supervising environmental engineer for Southern California, said the quarterly water checks should not prevent the construction of a new building on the site.

“They will be able to build on that site as soon as we finish the soil work,” Tully said.

County environmental health officials involved in the gasoline cleanup were not available for comment Friday on Flynn’s call for a speedup of the project.

Anderson, the harbor manager, said a private businessman wants to build a visitors’ center and office space on the site.

The small-craft harbor, used by pleasure and commercial fishing boats, is a popular tourist attraction. Numerous retail shops and restaurants have been built near the water.

Susan O’Brien, marketing director for the Channel Islands Harbor Assn. of Lessees, said waterfront business owners are anxious to see the former gas station cleared and a new building developed on the site.

“Everybody wants it to be cleaned up as soon as possible because it is an eyesore,” she said, “and we promote this as the cleanest harbor on the south coast of California.”