Get the Job Done

The proliferation of toxic waste sites was a problem that got completely out of hand before government and the public were scarely aware it even existed. Now there are 209 toxic dump sites in California, and there is not enough money to clean them all up.

In San Diego County, the worst-known dump is the Chatham brothers site in Escondido. It was identifed as a hazardous waste site 3 1/2 years ago, and since then has bounced up and down the state’s Superfund list, a ranking of the sites the state intends to clean up. Right now it is 43rd on the list.

Among concerns about the property--once a chemical distilling and reclamation business operated by the brothers--are that children might be tempted to play there and that the underground water table, which feeds Lake Hodges, might have become contaminated.

Department of Health Services officials are awaiting $100 million in bond funds approved by the voters last year--but not yet appropriated by the Legislature--to use in cleaning up dumps like the Chatham place.

They say the site will be on the list for funding next year, but Escondido residents have heard promises and encouraging words before.

In January, 1984, the regional director of the state’s toxic cleanup program acknowledged that the state had not been aggressive enough in trying to force the Chathams to clean up the property and pledged tough action.

Now the Department of Health Services says it has a plan to require the Chathams and Coastal Equities, the fraudulent, now-bankrupt real estate investment firm that bought the property, to clean it up or face fines of $25,000 a day. In the alternative, the state could do the job and then charge them three times the cleanup cost.

The department should stick by that plan and get the job done soon.

Four years is a long time to have passed without even ascertaining what lurks beneath the surface of the gooey pits and the settling ponds, where the ground is soft but nothing grows.