Methane Vapors No Hazard, State Agrees : But Chevron Ordered to Monitor Manhattan Beach Site Where Home Sales Were Halted

Modris A. Tidemanis, project manager with Chevron Land & Development Co., smiled. “The story has a happy ending.” The story was about Manhattan Village, a new-home project in Manhattan Beach where sales were halted last June because of methane vapors discovered at the 76-acre site.

“Sales have resumed,” he announced. “We finally proved to the world and to ourselves that we don’t have a problem. There is no short-term health hazard.”

Chevron Land tested, and the state Department of Health Services tested. “And we found no significant problems,” Nester Acedera, a senior waste managment engineer in the Southern California section, Toxic Substances Control Division, said.

However, Acedera’s department imposed a set of conditions for Chevron to follow to monitor the situation.

“And we’re complying with all of the conditions,” Tidemanis said. “We will issue a final report in mid-December on our tests over the past nine months, and we are committed to putting in a vapor-venting system with underground pipes to pump out any vapors that accumulate. We will do quarterly testing and monitoring for a year afterward and anything additional as agreed to with the Department of Health.”

Construction is expected to start on the vapor-venting system in early December, he added, “and it should be in place by late January.” The system will cost Chevron $750,000 to build. Testing has cost the company another $600,000.

“We’ve tested for every possible thing and proven that there is no health hazard,” Tidemanis explained. “We’re doing the vapor venting just so there will be no buildup of vapors that might be dangerous enough to cause an explosion. We don’t expect any long-term problems.

“Hopefully, there will be no need to operate the system after a year or two when the vapors are drawn out, but we’ll operate it until the Department of Health thinks necessary.” He estimates that it will cost Chevron $50,000 a year to operate. “So we’re spending a lot of resources to be sure there is no problem.”

It’s paying off, he figures, in terms of buyer response and homeowner trust. “Since we got the go-ahead a few weeks ago from the Department of Real Estate to reopen, we’ve had about 42 new sales contracts.

“So we only have about 60 units in inventory.” That includes town houses from $213,000 to single-family homes up to $470,000.

The next phase of 33 units is expected to be under construction in early December with sales opening in May.

When built out, there will be a total of 515 homes in the project of Pacific Coast Homes, a subsidiary of Chevron Land. Coast Construction Co. is doing the building. Nearly 100 homes are occupied.