Ascon nears historic cleanup deal
The largest oil and chemical companies that unloaded polluted
waste on the Ascon property for five decades are scheduled to begin
final talks with regulators on an agreement to clean up the toxic
dump, a state toxics spokeswoman said.
Once negotiations are complete, the nine companies are expected to
sign what is known as a consent order, in which they agree to clean
up a noxious styrene pit, lagoons of oily waste and a handful of
other chemicals spread across the terrain of the 38-acre property.
Officials with the California Department of Toxic Substances are
overseeing the pending agreement, which is expected to be finalized
in mid-November. The talks will begin within the next few weeks.
“They have agreed to enter into a good-faith negotiation on a
consent order,” Jeanne Garcia said. “We’re optimistic. This is the
furthest we’ve gotten with anybody on this property.”
If the companies eventually sign the order, it would be historic.
A string of developers hoping to use the land, once clean, for
beachfront housing sank into bankruptcy over the past decade when
faced with the high cleanup price tag. The dump is at Hamilton Avenue
and Magnolia Street in southeast Huntington Beach.
An attorney with Chevron Texaco who is involved in the talks said
he was confident a deal could be struck.
“We’ve begun discussions with [regulators], and we intend to
continue to negotiate,” said David Giannotti, an outside counsel with
Chevron. “We’re going to be able to reach an agreement with them.”
City leaders have bemoaned the lack of progress to clean up one of
Southern California’s most polluted landfills. So they welcomed the
news that an agreement could be signed soon.
“It’s good news, after the 10 years I’ve spent working on it,”
Councilman Ralph Bauer said. “I think it’s going to benefit that
area.”
Regulators have estimated the cleanup of the soil on the site
would cost at least $31.5 million. Contaminants are also suspected to
have entered the ground water, but more investigation is needed.
The list of companies moving to implement a cleanup plan is a
who’s who of industrial giants -- Atlantic Ritchfield Corp., Conoco
Inc., Dow Chemical Co., Exxon Mobil Corp., Philips Petroleum, Shell
Transport Trading, Southern California Edison and TRW Inc.
The companies have hired several environmental consultants to
assess the contamination on the site, including Fullerton-based
Project Navigator and GeoSyntec, a nationwide firm with a Surf City
office.
On Friday, GeoSyntec will begin installing three air-quality
monitoring wells -- testing canisters that will be inserted into
8-inch holes in the ground -- in the neighborhoods surrounding the
site to determine levels of pollution in the air. Samples are
scheduled to be taken Aug. 9.
Later in the month, environmental consultants for the companies
have said they will insert Geo-Probes and piezometers -- small tubes
used to take soil samples -- on the Ascon site.
In early June, consultants took ground-water samples in the
neighborhoods surrounding the property. The environmental consultant
performing the work will report the results to state toxics
regulators by the end of September, Garcia said.
Between 1938 and 1984, Ascon was a functioning landfill. The
companies used it to dump drilling mud, fuel oil, chromic acid,
sulfuric acid, aluminum slag, styrene (a form of plastic) and other
waste.
--Paul Clinton
Orange County beaches listed among dirtiest
In the constant and alternating evaluation of the nation’s beaches
Orange County’s -- including Surf City beaches -- were listed among
the dirtiest.
Beach postings and closures in Orange County spiked to an
eye-popping 80.7% in 2001, a national environmental watchdog reported
this month.
“These beaches extend all the way from Dana Point, [and] they are
subject to urban runoff,” Councilman Peter Green said. “But I’m
surprised that we’re worse than beaches on the East Coast.”
The Natural Resources Defense Council reported the data in a study
of the nation’s beaches that was released last week.
When county health regulators discover heightened levels of
bacteria in the water, signs are posted to warn swimmers to stay out
of the water. If a sewage spill occurs, regulators close the beach.
Orange County’s beaches were marred by one of those two stigmas
for 1,592 days in 2001. There were only 881 such days in 2000, the
report said.
Ventura County came in at No. 2 on the hit list, with 1,540 days.
Los Angeles County was third, with 1,046 days.
All of Surf City’s beaches -- Huntington State Beach, Huntington
City Beaches, Bolsa Chica State Beach and Huntington Harbour -- were
on the council’s list of trouble spots.
But several city officials were unconcerned with the report,
saying that while the state beaches have had troubles and closures,
city beaches have been clean since 1999.
“We monitor our beaches, especially in Orange County, almost on a
daily basis,” Councilwoman Shirley Dettloff said.
In a recent study released by Heal the Bay, beaches throughout the
city received mostly A ratings, she said.
Much of the county’s urban runoff -- polluted water that is known
to include animal and human waste, lawn pesticides and copper brake
residue from the roadways -- runs down channels leading to Surf City
beaches or into city storm drains. In that way, the city tends to act
as a receptacle for the county’s polluted waste water.
The increase is due in large part to sewage spills, the study
noted.
Sewage spills rose from 40 to 51 last year, said Monica Mazur,
supervisor of the Orange County ocean water protection program, which
is run by the Orange County Health Care Agency.
While Mazur doesn’t dispute the figures released by the National
Resources Defense Council, she did say they could be misleading.
The Orange County Health Care Agency is taking a closer look at
bacteria levels throughout the county and, with the help of new
technology, will lead to more warnings and closures, she said.
“We have better computerized systems to track spills,” Mazur said,
“Because of that, we’re having more postings.”
While the increase is significant, Mazur said water cleanliness
standards in the state are more strict when compared with other
states. This also contributes to the increase in warnings and
closures, she said.
--Paul Clinton and Jose Paul Corona
Supervisors’ denial no surprise to trust
Few were surprised by the latest decision in the development saga
that has spanned more than 30 years surrounding Bolsa Chica last week
-- least of all those who were defeated. The Orange County Board of
Supervisors’ resounding denial of appeals filed by the Bolsa Chica
Land Trust was par for the course, land trust members said.
“We’re sophisticated enough to understand that the outcome of the
supervisors was not unexpected, but it was disappointing
nonetheless,” said Evan Henry, the land trust’s president.
County supervisors unanimously upheld an Orange County Planning
Commission decision to allow Hearthside Homes to build a 388-home
development known as the Brightwater project on a 65-acre section of
the upper mesa.
Although they expected a denial of their pleas, land trust members
said supervisors continue to misunderstand the groups objections.
“I felt it was balanced and addressed everyone’s concerns,”
Supervisor Cynthia Coad, said of the revamped Brightwater project,
which began as a plan to build on 183-acres.
“I really admired the environmentalist that came forward, and
without their input in the past it would certainly look a lot
different today,” she added.
But whether new plans are fair and equitable is not the point,
Henry said.
“Our objections, officially, were to the [environmental-impact
report] process, and that the planning was not done appropriately,”
Henry said.
The group’s undisguised goal from the beginning has been to buy
the Bolsa Chica in its entirety from the owner and developer, he
said.
“From that standpoint, our purpose is to work with the owner to
purchase the land at fair market price and, as is their prerogative
although it’s disappointing, they have decided to go ahead with the
plan to try to develop. We feel it’s fair as an environmental group
to look for holes in the process,” Henry said.
And that is what they say the environmental report provides.
Although Henry said he is unsure what the group’s next step will
be, he said the fight will go on. The project is next scheduled to go
before the California Coastal Commission.
“We’ll be looking at it from all environmental angles as it
pertains to the Coastal Act, and one of those will be cultural,
archeological impacts,” said Coastal Commissioner Shirley Dettloff.
“I don’t know what [the Board of Supervisors’] reasoning was. I just
hope they were able to put effort into reviewing it because the trust
brought forward some very valid points.”
--Danette Goulet
Edison employees try to cancel pipeline sales
A group of unions representing employees of Southern California
Edison is challenging the utility’s sale of its network of pipelines
and storage tanks, a portion of which is in Surf City.
In a brief filed last week with administrative law Judge Carol
Brown, attorneys representing the Coalition of California Utility
Employees say the sale should be halted until Edison pays $8.5
million in what the group is saying are overcharges to ratepayers.
The attorneys cite a portion of the Public Utilities Code, known
as Section 377, to support their claim that the utility cannot divest
anything deemed to be part of its generating capacity until 2006. At
one point, the lines in Huntington Beach powered the AES power plant,
which was sold by Edison in the late 1990s.
State lawmakers inserted Section 377 into the code in January 2001
as a response to the state’s energy crisis.
Edison has been charging its customers $8.5 million a year to run
the oil-delivery system, attorney Kate Poole said.
On March 22, Edison announced it was selling its entire
oil-delivery system in Southern California, which includes 120 miles
of pipeline and nine-million gallons of storage capacity.
The Public Utilities Commission has scheduled hearings for August
to consider approving the sale to Pacific Terminals LLC, a Long Beach
pipeline operator. The company, owned by Denver billionaire Philip
Anshutz, has stepped in to buy the pipes and tanks for $158.2
million.
The pipelines crisscrossing through Huntington Beach are at the
southern end of Edison’s system. Pipeline runs north on Newland
Street, heads west on Garfield Avenue, north on Edwards Street, west
on Warner Street and north on Bolsa Chica Street.
Three large tanks, which can store 450,000 barrels or 18.9 million
gallons each, sit on Edison land directly south of the Ascon toxic
waste site. A smaller 26,000-gallon tank that sits across the flood
channel has also been included in the deal.
-- Paul Clinton
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