EPA OKs Disposal of McColl Waste
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has approved a Kern County disposal site for storage of World War II oil refinery sludge from Fullerton’s McColl dump, paving the way for removal of the hazardous waste beginning May 15, authorities said Tuesday.
The EPA’s toxics and waste management division in San Francisco gave its approval Monday to Petroleum Waste Inc. of Bakersfield as an acceptable site to receive the estimated 200,000 tons of waste from the McColl dump.
State officials overseeing the Superfund cleanup project informally awarded the disposal contract Tuesday to the firm, lowest of four bidders for the McColl waste at $31.50 a ton. The disposal site is situated off California 58 about 36 miles west of Bakersfield near Buttonwillow.
The McColl dump site was created in the mid-1940s when oil companies producing aviation fuel for World War II deposited waste materials in 12 sumps operated by Eli McColl in then-rural Fullerton. Now the dump site, situated under a vacant field and a portion of a nine-hole golf course on the Los Coyotes Country Club, is bordered on three sides by expensive homes.
State health officials have determined that the soil contains sulfuric acid, benzene and arsenic, and the fumes contain sulfur dioxide, causing surrounding residents to suffer from headaches, nausea and respiratory problems.
The first work at the site will be the construction of roads, fences, decontamination facilities, a truck scale and traffic signals on a section of the golf course adjacent to the buried waste.
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