Plan proposed to clean up Westside site soil

IF YOU GOPublic meeting on cleanup plan for 1640 Monrovia Ave., where soil was contaminated by industrial uses and mixed use development is now proposed

WHAT:

WHEN: Open house from 5 p.m. to 6 p.m., May 9. Meeting begins at 6 p.m.

WHERE: Costa Mesa City Council chambers, 77 Fair Drive

INFO: Call Julie Johnson at (714) 484-5337 or view the cleanup plan at the Costa Mesa Branch Library, 1855 Park Ave.

COSTA MESA — The site of one of the earliest projects proposed for the Westside overlay zone must be cleaned up before construction can begin.

The latest plans for the project include 151 condos in four-story buildings with a multi-level parking structure, five custom live/work lofts, and six industrial office buildings on a 6.8-acre site at 1640 Monrovia Ave., city senior planner Claire Flynn said.

The site has been used for manufacturing off and on since the 1950s, and was the home of Eaton Aerospace, a company that made cockpit switches, controls and displays, from the 1980s until 2005.

Now the state Department of Toxic Substances Control — a division of the state Environmental Protection Agency — is overseeing plans to clean up contaminated soil on the site. According to the department, over the years chemicals such as paint thinner, acetone, nitric acid and epoxy were used there, and studies of the site show perchloroethylene, a chemical mainly used in dry cleaning, and some polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) that were used in pesticides and engine lubricants until they were banned in the 1970s.

Under the proposed clean-up plan for the site, workers will dig out contaminated soil and truck it along Placentia Avenue and Victoria Street to the Costa Mesa (55) Freeway, and a barrier will be put in under all new buildings.

A public meeting is scheduled May 9 on the clean-up proposal. Costa Mesa Mayor Allan Mansoor said he’s heard a few comments from residents at City Council meetings about contamination on the Westside, but no major concerns.

“If it needs to be done, it needs to be done,” he said. “I think the ultimate goal is to have a clean, improved and revitalized city, and if this gets us closer to that goal, then it’s a good thing.”

A representative of Nexus Development, which submitted the project plans to the city, did not return calls for comment Tuesday.

On Monrovia Avenue, some business owners didn’t seem worried about the contamination, but they echoed old concerns that residential developments coming in means they’ll be moving out.

“I don’t think it’ll fit [with the neighborhood], but they’re not going to let industrial in,” said Vaughn Bowen, whose company supplies products for environmental clean-ups.

Almost next door to the condo site, Hardin Graphics owner Mike Hardin said the plans represent inevitable progress, but he worried that he’ll have to move sooner than he’d like.

“It bums me out,” he said. “As far as industrial area goes, this is a nice neighborhood.”

Planning commissioner Eleanor Egan, who has made suggestions to businesses on environmental issues in the past, said the work at the Eaton site will likely be the first of such projects as the Westside is redeveloped.

“There will be other clean-ups, I’m sure, because there must be contaminated soil after all these years of industrial use that either wasn’t regulated or wasn’t monitored,” she said.