McColl Toxic Dump Study Is Flawed at Outset, City Warns

The City of Fullerton has warned the embattled toxics division of the state Department of Health Services that its McColl dump cleanup study is starting out with grave inadequacies that could result in legal challenges.

In a letter sent last week, the city told state officials that in their formal notice of intent to prepare an environmental impact report, the cleanup methods to be studied were not listed. Such flaws in the process, city officials argue, could land the cleanup project in court again and force further delays.

A Superior Court judge last May ordered the state to do a full environmental impact study, overruling the state’s claim that such a review was not needed and stalling a $26.5-million Superfund cleanup of the Fullerton hazardous waste dump.

‘Rather Inauspicious Beginning’

“In view of the fact that this (report) is likely to be subjected to the same rigorous legal scrutiny as was the previous environmental documentation (or lack of same), this seems to us to be a rather inauspicious beginning,” Fullerton senior planner Barry Eaton said in the city’s written response to toxics unit officials in Los Angeles.

“We’re not warning them as a threat. We’re warning them to try to avoid the kind of legal delays that happened last time,” Eaton said in an interview.

Frustrated at being excluded from the process, Fullerton also formally requested a meeting by Feb. 14 of concerned local and regional agencies, which include the Southern California Air Quality Management District, the regional water quality control board and the Orange County Health Care Agency.

Nestor Acedera, chief of the assessment and mitigation unit in the toxics division’s Southern California regional office, said Friday he believed that the state’s formal notice of intent to prepare the environmental report is “adequate.”

But Acedera said he will submit Fullerton’s letter to state lawyers to determine whether the city’s criticisms are justified.

‘Correct It Now’

“If there is any validity to any one of these, we need to correct it now. We do not need to wait 12 months from now to find out in court,” he said.

Acedera added that he “can appreciate” the city’s sense of frustration. But he said that meetings on the environmental report process will soon be scheduled and that Fullerton and other responsible agencies and cities will be invited to attend.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which is paying for 90% of the cleanup, has criticized the state’s handling of contracts at both McColl and the Stringfellow acid pits near Riverside. The FBI also is looking into contracting problems at both sites. Gov. George Deukmejian has asked the legislative auditor general to investigate contracting procedures.

Assemblyman Ross Johnson (R-La Habra) said he also is disturbed by the environmental report process for the McColl cleanup.

Delay ‘Incomprehensible’

“I have a certain sense of the frustration they feel in Fullerton, and I share it,” Johnson said. “It is incomprehensible to me that it has taken this many months. The court decision was last May. I can’t fathom why the EIR isn’t done already.”

Johnson aide Susan Swatt said: “We expected the (cleanup) contract to be signed by this time. Now Health Services is saying the soonest McColl will be cleaned up is Jan. 1, 1987. . . . If I were living there, I’d be really furious by now.”

The dump was created in the mid-1940s when oil companies deposited aviation fuel waste in 12 sumps operated by Eli McColl, who leased the eight-acre site from ranchers in then-rural northwest Fullerton.

The dump now sits under a vacant field and part of a golf course on the Los Coyotes Country Club, bordered on three sides by expensive homes. On March 10, lawsuits filed by homeowners against the city and developers are scheduled to come to trial.

Highly Toxic Residue

State health officials have determined that the refinery sludge contains highly toxic sulfuric acid, benzene and arsenic. Before a canvas cover was stretched across the dump, sulfur dioxide fumes caused surrounding residents to suffer from headaches, nausea and respiratory problems, mainly during summer months.

Last May, state contractors were set to excavate and haul an estimated 200,000 tons of sludge and contaminated soil to a Kern County disposal facility, culminating five years of studies and delays.

But after six days of hearings, Superior Court Judge H. Walter Croskey agreed with worried Kern County officials and residents that the project should be delayed pending a full study of potential environmental hazards.

The state initially said it planned to appeal the order, contending that an environmental impact report was unnecessary, especially since the disposal site near Buttonwillow in Kern County was licensed to receive McColl-type waste and had weathered a full environmental study three years earlier.

Feared Adverse Decision

However, fearful that an adverse decision could affect pending and future toxic-waste cleanup projects, state officials abandoned an appeal in favor of the environmental impact study, a process expected to take 12 to 18 months.

Eaton said the state, in its Nov. 27 formal notice telling Fullerton an environmental impact report was being prepared, failed to adequately describe the project or list possible cleanup alternatives to be studied, as required by the California Environmental Quality Act.

“This stage in the process is one of the only opportunities for responsible agencies to comment on what should be studied,” Eaton said.

Eaton said he has been told that methods to be studied include, among others, on-site treatment and incineration, which potentially could release lethal sulfur dioxide gas into surrounding neighborhoods.

But without that information in writing, he said, “it doesn’t give us a chance to say what we want to see studied or clarified.”