Toxic-Waste Tests Ordered at Military Dump Sites

The contents and condition of 14 landfills and dump sites operated by the military in San Diego County are to be scrutinized for the first time under a statewide toxic-waste testing program detailed Thursday by the California Water Resources Control Board.

The dumps, at the North Island Naval Air Station and Camp Pendleton, are among 25 in San Diego County and 125 more throughout the state that the board selected for testing in 1986 to determine whether they are leaking hazardous wastes.

The 150 sites, out of a total of 1,800 dumps statewide, received priority in the 12-year program either because they have caused problems in the past or because they are in areas with a high potential for illegal dumping, officials said.

“I want to emphasize that placement on this list does not mean the site leaks or has a problem,” said board Chairman Raymond Stone. “ . . . The testing will tell us if we have a problem or not. Until those results are in, it would be unfair to stigmatize the site as dangerous or unsafe.”

The San Diego list includes 11 sites at North Island and three Camp Pendleton landfills, in addition to several municipally operated trash landfills, the county’s defunct hazardous-waste dump at Otay Mesa and a privately operated dump nearby.

Among the Navy sites are an old chemical-waste disposal site, “treatment beds” for neutralizing industrial waste, and a salvage yard, said Arthur Coe, supervising engineer for the regional Water Quality Control Board, which helped prepare the list.

The Marine Corps sites are three landfills about which Coe said he knew little. He said they probably made the list because they are on a military base where there is a good chance they have received toxic materials.

“There is reason to worry about any site that has received toxic or hazardous materials in the past,” Coe said. “First, because they are there. And second, because the state of the art for containing or safely disposing of those materials in the past was not as advanced as it is now.”

Until now, military bases have avoided the scrutiny of civilian environmental regulators.

“Although this Regional Board enjoys an excellent working relationship with the Department of Defense, for security reasons Regional Board staff may not freely search for sources of contamination on military bases,” Coe wrote in a report released this week.

“The Navy has studied toxic spills and dumpsites at the North Island Naval Air Station, but the conduct of the studies and the conclusions drawn from the studies are completely under the control of the Navy,” the report stated.

Under the new dump-testing program, mandated by the state Legislature, the landfill operators have one year to conduct the tests and have them certified by registered geologists. The regional board will study the reports to see if there are environmental problems.

The tests, to determine if there is toxic waste on a site and whether it is leaking, must assess the condition of the “waste pile” itself, the earth under and around the site, and any surface and ground water within a mile.

The San Diego list includes the Miramar West Landfill, a large facility run by the city that takes most of the metropolitan area’s trash. It also includes the Otay hazardous-waste landfill and another closed hazardous-waste dump once operated by a private firm.

“There are a whole variety of things that were dumped in the site,” Coe said of the Otay landfill. “The thing we worry most about is liquid waste. For a long time, that was the major disposal point for industrial waste in the San Diego area. They got material from all over the county.”

Liquid wastes could include acids and caustic materials, Coe said. He said the Navy’s industrial waste treatment beds might have held wastes from naval aircraft shops such as paints, solvents, degreasing compounds and fuel.

Asked what he anticipates that the testing might show, Coe said, “We’ll know better once we start complying with the program. I’m sure on some of these sites we’re going to find some evidence of some leakage or some type of problems.

“It may not be significant at all or it may be very significant, depending on where it is,” he said of leakage. “ . . . On a regional basis reliance on ground water is minimal. But there are some areas where reliance is almost complete.”

Outside of San Diego County, the list released Thursday includes 17 sites in Los Angeles County, eight in Riverside County and 14 in San Bernardino County plus the Casmalia Resource Site in Santa Barbara County.