Assemblyman Assails McColl Cancellation

Although work has been stalled indefinitely by court order in Kern County, Assemblyman Ross Johnson (R-La Habra) says it would be a “crucial” mistake to cancel contracts for extracting World War II refinery sludge from the McColl dump site in Fullerton.

In a two-page letter he sent to Gov. George Deukmejian on Monday, Johnson said officials of the state Department of Health Services have informed him that they intend to cancel contracts for the $26.5 million project to remove about 200,000 tons of the smelly hazardous waste for the time being.

“If that occurs, I am convinced that the McColl waste will never be removed,” Johnson wrote.

“I can tell you that the residents living near the site would be outraged, and that I personally would find such action a betrayal of a long series of promises . . .” the letter continued.

Although there are costs associated with continuing the contracts while work on the federal Superfund project is halted, Johnson said “it is well worth it in the overall picture of the McColl cleanup.” He urged Deukmejian to order Health Services officials to continue the contracts until cleanup can begin.

The decision to cancel contracts with Canonie Engineers of Chesterton, Ind., grew out of a Superior Court judge’s decision on May 31 to prohibit the dumping of McColl waste at Petroleum Waste Inc. in Kern County until an environmental impact report was prepared.

Spurred by angry residents in the rural farm community of Buttonwillow, about six miles east of the disposal facility, the Kern County Board of Supervisors filed suit to block the transport and dumping of the McColl waste in early May, about two weeks before the hauling was slated to begin.

Supervisors, residents, and even a local water agency joined in the suit, arguing that the state Department of Health Services failed to consider the environmental effects on Kern County in its zeal to eliminate the hazardous waste problem in Fullerton.

After six days of hearings in Bakersfield, visiting Los Angeles Superior Court Judge H. Walter Croskey issued a 32-page opinion in which he stated that the McColl cleanup project was “clearly a project (where) there is a reasonable possibility that the environment may be significantly affected.”

Croskey rejected the state attorney general’s argument that the emergency nature of the cleanup exempted it from California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) requirements.

Possible Delays

State officials have said the decision could result in expensive delays in the project of anywhere from six to 18 months pending appeal or to conduct an in-depth environmental impact study.

Canonie’s on-site project manager, Tom Donovan, has said his company has been billing the state about $12,000 a day since February, when excavation work was scheduled to begin. State Department of Health Services officials have said the actual amount was subject to negotiation.

Earlier in the year, a suit similar to Kern County’s was filed by Santa Barbara County to halt the dumping of the McColl waste in the Casmalia landfill near Santa Maria. The suit caused a brief delay, but soon became moot after Casmalia officials quadrupled their price for receiving the toxic waste and state officials sought a new round of bidders, eventually settling on Petroleum Waste Inc.

The McColl dump site was created in the mid-1940s when oil companies producing aviation fuel during World War II deposited the waste in 12 pits located in what was then a mostly rural area of Fullerton. It is now under a portion of a nine-acre country club golf course and bordered on three sides by homes.

Chemicals Found

Tests of the soil, which emits foul odors, particularly during the summer heat, have turned up sulfuric acid, benzene and arsenic. Fumes from the site contain sulfur dioxide, which is believed to cause headaches, nausea and respiratory problems suffered by area residents.

To end what he termed “paralysis by analysis,” Rep. William E. Dannemeyer (R-Fullerton) last month introduced legislation in Congress to exempt hazardous waste cleanup projects from lengthy local environmental review.

State and federal officials overseeing the McColl project also have begun to reexamine alternative methods to clean up the toxic waste, including on-site treatment of the sludge.