Gas Buildup Threatens Apartments, Court Told

Methane gas in potentially explosive amounts has been found in the soil around a 90-unit apartment building next to a former city landfill, an engineer testified in court Tuesday.

The tests, made on the grounds and the patio of Country Club Lane Apartments, showed methane concentrations as high as 50% in soil on the apartment house property, which is next to the former Maxson Street landfill, said Thomas Kraemer, a consulting engineer.

Leo Papas, attorney for the apartment house owners who are suing the city, said the partners are seeking $3 million to $4 million in damages to remedy the natural gas problem and other faults that they allege were caused by city landfill operations.

The landfill, operated from 1963 through 1971, is the second Oceanside city dump to cause methane problems for its neighbors. In 1981, three city schools next to a former Mission Avenue landfill were forced to close for nine months after high concentrations of the gas were found on the school grounds.

Methane, which is odorless and colorless, is considered potentially dangerous because it can explode when ignited in a confined place. A $330,000 control system at the Mission Avenue landfill lowered the gas seepage over most of the school property and allowed classes to resume at Jefferson Junior High, Mission Elementary and Clair Burgener School for the Handicapped.

The gas, which is created from decomposing garbage, seeps up to the surface and usually dissipates harmlessly in the air. However, methane concentrations of 5% or more can ignite and, if trapped in a confined space, can explode.

Attorney Dennis Daley, hired to represent the city in the Superior Court lawsuit brought by the owners of Country Club Lane Apartments, said that city officials are aware of the Maxson Street methane problem and are working to correct it. He said that a gas-extraction system similar to the one at the Mission Avenue site would be installed by the city within a year. City officials could not be reached for comment Tuesday because many were attending a League of California Cities convention in San Francisco.

Both of the former city landfills are among 12 Southern California sites on the federal government’s violations list, according to Mary Coyle, waste management specialist with the state Solid Waste Management Board.

She said that the Maxson Street site is in violation of state and federal regulations because it does not have a working methane-control system. State and federal regulatory agencies require that no more than a 5% gas mixture exist at the boundaries of a landfill site.

Oceanside also is in violation at its former Mission Avenue dump site because two of 40 wells drilled on the landfill have failed to suction off enough of the methane to meet the state and federal requirements.

Papas said a meeting was held Monday night with apartment tenants to inform them of the methane danger and of the efforts to remedy the situation.

“Most of them took the news very well. There had been a lot of rumors about what was happening,” the attorney said.

In August, several small fires occurred in the apartment complex’s center patio, he said, “which could have been caused by methane gas, although we cannot be certain of that.”

He said that methane alarms have been installed in some of the apartments, and the owners have pledged to install alarms in all the ground-floor units as soon as possible. None of the alarms installed has sounded yet, he said.

Papas charged that the City of Oceanside has been aware of the Maxson Street methane problem since the landfill was closed about 13 years ago. Fires occurred in lighting fixtures installed for several ball fields that were built on the landfill site after it was closed. The lighting was removed and the ball fields abandoned, he said.

A small system designed to siphon off gases from the landfill was built in the mid-1970s, Papas said, but neighbors complained loudly about the noise and unpleasant odors that the methane control plant caused. Because of its ineffectiveness and the neighborhood complaints, the plant was shut down a few weeks after it was put into operation.

The city’s proposed methane disposal plant will not bother neighbors and will function efficiently, Daley said.

Coyle said that the Maxson Street landfill problem predates creation of the Solid Waste Management Board in 1974. No enforcement steps have been taken against the city for its violations of state regulations, she said.

The state board delegates its policing powers to “local agencies,” Coyle explained. The local agency delegated to enforce state waste management regulations in Oceanside is the city’s Public Services Department, she said.