Ascon cleanup a victory

For more than four decades, oil companies dumped their toxic

sludge on a patch of land along Huntington Beach’s coastline.

From 1938 through 1984, Ascon was the receptacle for waste from

oil-drilling operations and construction projects. Among the

contaminants on a 38-acre site at the southwest corner of Hamilton

Avenue and Magnolia Street near Edison High School are volatile and

semi-volatile organic compounds, as well as metals such as arsenic

and lead.

The land, which looks out over the Pacific, has sat unused since

1984 when the foul dumping ceased. Several developers have come

through with big plans for the site. But the cost of cleaning up the

area has always been too great, bankrupting a couple hopeful

developers.

But now, in a landmark agreement, most of the major contributors

to the dump have agreed to clean up their mess.

With only Exxon Mobil refusing to chip in, seven major

corporations -- Atlantic Richfield Co., Chevron Environmental

Management, Conoco Inc. and Phillips Petroleum, the Dow Chemical Co.,

Shell Oil, Southern California Edison and Northrup Grumman Space &

Mission System Corp., formerly known as TRW -- have signed on to at

last clean up the toxic dump.

To them, congratulations and thank you.

The agreement is proof of a heightened environmental awareness and

sets an example for every business, big and small. As we continue to

grow as a society we learn from our mistakes, but we must also be

willing to accept responsibility for our actions.

Some residents may prefer that the site be left alone and their

peace and quiet not disturbed by a three-year cleanup. But it is a

toxic blunder that has polluted the land long enough. It has already

fallen to the next generation to clean up. It is best not left any

longer.

The agreement is forged, the toxic dump will, at last, be cleaned

up. It is a great victory for Huntington Beach.