Santa Barbara Lawsuit Seeks to Block Hauling of McColl Waste to Santa Maria

The City and County of Santa Barbara filed suit Tuesday to block the transportation of 200,000 cubic yards of hazardous wastes from Fullerton’s McColl dump to a landfill near Santa Maria.

The lawsuit, filed in Santa Barbara County Superior Court, charges that the state Department of Health Services, which is conducting the cleanup of the refinery waste dump, did not comply with the California Environmental Quality Act when it filed last month a “categorical exemption” stating that an environmental impact report was not necessary for the project.

The suit asks the court to issue a preliminary injunction barring the waste-hauling trucks from traveling into and through Santa Barbara County until an environmental impact report is prepared and approved.

The city and county claim the cleanup project--expected to put 40 truckloads of wastes on the road each day for 14 months--will have “significant effects on the environment, including, but not limited to, traffic congestion, traffic safety, risk of upset (spills) and air pollution.”

Further, the suit claims, traffic generated by the cleanup will be “large in volume and virtually continuous” and that the Casmalia Resources landfill, where the McColl waste is to be deposited, “is already overburdened.”

A spokesman for the attorney general’s office, which will defend the state health department in the suit, could not be reached because offices were closed for the Lincoln’s Birthday holiday.

Tom Bailey, program management chief for the health department’s toxic substances control division, reached at home, said he believes the state has complied with the environmental protection law. There has been “extensive environmental review” of the McColl excavation project through the planning, design and decision-making stages, he said.

Excavation of the dump had been scheduled to begin two days ago until the federal Environmental Protection Agency, as part of a national policy decision, ruled that the Casmalia landfill had to be fitted with a double lining, to guard against contaminating groundwater. The retrofitting, expected to add $5 million to the previous $21.5-million McColl cleanup price tag, will delay the excavation until May, Bailey said.

A hearing on the Santa Barbara lawsuit is set for March 29.

Jed Beebe, Santa Barbara County deputy county counsel, said the suit “certainly has the potential” to delay the McColl cleanup. “If our argument is correct and they (the state health department) should prepare an environmental impact report, that will take several months,” he said.

The lawsuit was supplemented by six written declarations of county officials, who documented the increase in traffic to the Casmalia facility, and claimed the transportation and storage of wastes from McColl could pose health and safety problems in Santa Barbara County.

The Casmalia Resources landfill has been the focus of controversy lately. With the hazardous waste ban at the BKK landfill in West Covina late last year, more hazardous waste has been directed to the Santa Barbara County dump. The Casmalia elementary school was closed for two days in November because, school officials said, sickening odors were coming from the dump.

Air monitoring is now going on.

Deputy County Counsel Beebe said that state officials, knowing of the impending lawsuit, have suggested that Santa Barbara is using McColl as a scapegoat for the “general Casmalia problem.”

“But the fact is there aren’t many ways we can get a handle on the Casmalia problem, and it’s appropriate, wherever we can, that we do what is possible,” he said. “We want the state to deal with our concerns.”

Also named a defendant in the lawsuit is Crosby & Overton Inc., of Long Beach, which has subcontracted to haul wastes from McColl. No representative of the subcontractor could be reached for comment.