Ascon Landfill Downgraded by State as a Toxic Hazard

The Ascon landfill in Huntington Beach, suspected of being a toxic waste dump and long feared by residents, poses little imminent health danger, according to a new state ranking system for hazardous waste sites.

However, Huntington Beach Councilman Don MacAllister said Sunday that he disputes the state’s indication that Ascon is relatively safe.

“How can the state say that (there is relatively little danger) when we in Huntington Beach still don’t know what’s under that landfill?” asked MacAllister. He noted that the City Council has insisted that the contents of the dump be analyzed “to see what’s under there” before any excavation work is begun.

The governor’s office Friday sent the Legislature a proposed new plan for cleaning up the state’s worst toxic waste sites.

The plan calls for spending a $100-million state bond issue, approved by voters last November, to clean up toxic sites. The plan also increased the number of sites to be cleaned up from 93 to 180.

In the process, the state gave new rankings to sites suspected of being toxic. Ascon, which had been ranked 77, slipped to a ranking of 175--almost the bottom of the 180 sites on the cleanup list.

Joel S. Moskowitz, state deputy health service director, explained Sunday that “(the ranking) was not a matter of anyone’s discretion. . . . We just don’t decide what ranking these sites will have because it’s done by a mathematical formula.”

In a telephone interview from Sacramento, Moskowitz said the formula used to rank toxic sites or those suspected of being toxic has four parts and three of those parts are geared to how potentially dangerous the sites are. The fourth equation, he said, “ranks them according to how the cleanup would produce a major public health benefit.”

Moskowitz said the formula, which is primarily geared to safety, indicated that Ascon is not a source of imminent health danger. But, he added, “That is not going to give special comfort to people who are neighbors of that site down there in Orange County. We think there is no excuse for allowing any sites to remain.

“It is for that reason that the governor last year asked for $300 million from the Legislature to clean up all the sites within a year. But notwithstanding the governor’s request, the Legislature only gave him $100 million. Had we gotten the entire $300 million, all the sites could have been cleaned up.”

‘No one has seen the final report on the core samples. It’s quite disturbing --Councilman Don MacAllister (The governor’s request was for a $300-million toxic cleanup bond issue on the November ballot. The Legislature, however, reduced it to $100 million.)

Moskowitz, however, said that no matter how much state money was available for toxic cleanups, Ascon would still rank low. He said that is because the land owner has long indicated a willingness to clean up the site using private rather than state money.

The Huntington Beach City Council, however, last September extended for another year a moratorium on allowing an excavation of Ascon, pending more information about what toxins exist deep in the landfill.

The landfill, near the intersection of Magnolia Street and Hamilton Avenue, is a 37-acre site used in the 1940s as a dumping ground for oil wastes. More recently, the landfill only accepted dirt, wood and building materials, but environmentalists fear that toxic residue from oil wastes lies deep beneath the top fill.

People who live near the landfill have sought its cleanup for years. When the dump was first put into use 40 years ago, the nearby area was vacant, but the site is now ringed by expensive homes. Edison High School is a stone’s throw away from the landfill, which is about a mile north of Pacific Coast Highway.

Councilman MacAllister said in an interview Sunday that no one really knows the extent of toxics in the landfill. He said the city feels it would be unsafe to allow excavation without the study.

And MacAllister said he questions the state’s new ranking of Ascon, since all information about the landfill is still not available.

“No one has seen the final report on the core samples,” MacAllister said. “It’s quite disturbing to me, and I think to the city, to see the state indicate that Ascon is relatively safe. We still believe it’s a major problem in our city.”

Asterx Petroleum Inc. of Anaheim in September filed a $5.25-million suit against the City of Huntington Beach, claiming the City Council’s moratorium unfairly obstructed the company’s planned cleanup efforts at Ascon.

That suit, which has not yet gone to trial, alleged that Asterx spent $250,000 in preparing for the cleanup and lost an estimated $5 million in profits it could have made from recycling petroleum wastes at the site.

The new state rankings of toxic sites also gave a lower level of priority to a suspected site in Costa Mesa. That site, identified as “Metropolitan Circuits,” was reduced from 45 to 125 on the new list.

Metropolitan Circuits apparently has drawn little public attention in the Costa Mesa area. Former Mayor Donn Hall said in an interview Sunday that he believed the site was a burned-out building near John Wayne Airport. He added that he was not sure of the degree of toxic waste concern the site posed.