‘We Had No Choice’ : Worries Still Cloud Return to Homes Near Toxic Dump

Most of the homeowners evacuated last summer from a hilltop neighborhood overlooking the San Gabriel Valley have returned--unhappily--to their houses near a toxic waste dump.

“We didn’t want to move back,” Chong Jaime said Saturday. “We’re concerned about the health of the children.”

But now that the state has found no presence of potentially hazardous gasses, the BKK Corp., which operates the West Covina landfill, has ended its payments for temporary alternate housing as of this weekend, residents said.

A Sign of Concern

So the Jaimes, who have a sign reading “Danger Toxic Gas” painted on a fence outside their home, have come back.

“We had no choice,” Jaime said. “They stopped supporting us.”

In all, 21 families were evacuated from the neighborhood of curving streets and neatly landscaped homes on July 17, after a routine gas company inspection discovered potentially dangerous levels of explosive methane gas and of vinyl chloride, a carcinogen.

All but 10 were soon told they could return, but the last group was not cleared to go back to their homes until last month, when the state Department of Health Services and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency found no reason for the evacuation to continue.

Residents continue to be concerned, however, complaining of foul smells from the nearby dump, which voluntarily stopped accepting toxic wastes for disposal in November.

“They build the banks higher and higher,” said Songjun Lee, pointing to trucks that were busy enlarging the protective walls around the dump Saturday. “But we still smell the odors.”

Although his house was not evacuated, Lee lives across Lynn Court from some of the houses where the heaviest concentrations of methane gas were found.

Like many in the neighborhood, he is distressed about property values, but a two-story house a few doors away displayed a “Sold” sign Saturday.

The owners declined to comment, but real estate broker Noel A. Wychico said the deal went into escrow within a month after the house was put on the market in October.

“I think there are still buyers who are interested in buying the properties for speculation,” Wychico said. “A seller might be trying to sell for less than the market value of the property, and also buyers are speculating that sometime a year from now the issue might cool down and the price may go up again.”

Ric Notini, program manager for the state Department of Health Services, said in November that samples taken beginning in August showed much lower concentrations of methane than the amounts that prompted the evacuation order in July.

The reason that families were not allowed to return until December, he said, “is that we’re evaluating the data to determine the relative safety of the homes. We’re just trying to be very conservative.”

Despite that, he said: “We can’t guarantee safety. We’re not in the business of guaranteeing safety. We can only make recommendations relative to other findings in that area.”