Homeowners Near McColl Languish as Delays Drag On

Six months after one Fullerton resident put his spacious house on the market, he snapped up the first offer, although it was $30,000 below his asking price of $210,000.

Still smarting from his “bad business decision” to buy the home near the McColl hazardous-waste dump in 1978, the retired aerospace executive is angry that after nearly six years of hearings, studies and delays, cleanup was aborted before it could begin last May. Experts now say a remedy is at least a year away, and probably more.

“I’m one of the people who was led down the primrose path by the state and everyone else,” said the man, who asked that his name be withheld lest it harm the pending sale of his home. “I thought as long as it was going to be cleaned up, I would be OK.”

Lawsuits Going to Trial

He regrets not joining in the myriad lawsuits going to trial March 10 against developers, the city and others for the building of three housing tracts around the World War II dump for jet fuel refinery waste.

“Anywhere else this house would have sold from $215,000 to $250,000,” he said. “If I could possibly afford it . . . I’d sue every damned one of them.”

The McColl dump was to have been a distant memory by now. Once considered the No. 1 hazardous-waste site in California and the most expensive federal Superfund project in the nation, it remains all too real for residents and toxic-cleanup officials.

A $26.5-million Superfund project was set to remove the foul-smelling acid sludge last May. But the 40-week excavation and redisposal project was blocked by a Superior Court injunction on May 31.

The court decision, prompted by Kern County opposition to disposal of McColl waste there, has forced state toxics officials to do their first-ever environmental impact report and has led to cost overruns of more than $1.6 million, authorities said.

Some experts also fear that the Kern County decision may have a ripple effect on pending toxic-waste projects throughout California, forcing the state to do costly and time-consuming environmental studies to forestall any legal challenges.

The court-ordered delay also has prompted the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency to re-examine other cleanup methods, ranging from containment on site to biological treatment to sophisticated incineration or thermal refining techniques--alternatives rejected years ago as too costly. EPA officials say technological advancements warrant a new look. But they concede that there is growing aversion to moving hazardous waste from one dump site to another, as more once-safe landfills across the county are found to be leaking.

The EPA, which was to pay 90% of the cleanup costs, has criticized the state’s handling of cleanups for the McColl dump and the Stringfellow acid pits in Riverside County. Federal and state authorities are investigating contracting procedures for both projects.

Perhaps the greatest uncertainty for McColl, however, is whether there will be money for the cleanup, if and when it’s allowed to begin.

Rising Frustration

EPA officials now say they cannot promise the money because the federal Superfund is nearly exhausted, and legislation to restart the expired program has been mired in Congress.

“Certainly, we would ask for the funds,” said Paula Bisson, the EPA’s acting chief for federal Superfund projects in California. “But until we have an appropriation from Congress, we cannot guarantee funding, especially now, with no Superfund in effect.”

These uncertainties increasingly have frustrated many of the dump’s neighbors, especially those who did not sue. In recent interviews, many also expressed doubt that McColl will ever be cleaned up.

Nick Popavich said he blames elected officials for failure to clean up a “virtual time bomb.”

“I supported (Gov. George) Deukmejian, but he hasn’t done a damned thing,” said Popavich, a Los Angeles County sheriff’s captain who has lived 150 yards east of the dump site since December, 1978.

“Millions have been spent on the studies and still nothing occurs,” said Popavich, who also is not among the 143 families in line to share more than $3 million in pretrial settlements to date. “I tell you, I would support the damned devil if he would clean this up.

“The tragedy is, you have this helpless feeling that there really is nothing you can do.”

Frustration rankles even officials for Canonie Engineers and their subcontractors. The Michigan-based firm won the cleanup contract in early 1984 but spent the following 1 1/2 years battling one delay after another, then fighting to be compensated for work on the stalled project.

‘Beyond Our Control’

“It was frustrating for us because a lot of things were beyond our control,” said Thomas Donovan, McColl project manager for Canonie. “A lot of decisions were made before we ever got the contract, like the decision not to do an environmental impact report. In our opinion, that’s what stifled the cleanup.

“From a personal point of view, it was very frustrating to get two days away from starting the cleanup--to have everything ready and have it all fall apart. That was rough.”

State and federal officials sympathize but say they are hamstrung by the court order and the widespread ‘not-in-my-backyard’ attitude of the public about toxic waste. That attitude, they say, led Kern County to challenge McColl, although the Kern site met all state and federal requirements for receiving acid sludge.

“I think everyone who has worked on this project feels very frustrated,” Bisson said from EPA offices in San Francisco. “It’s hard for people who don’t work in government to understand how slow it moves. . . .

“I feel frustrated from where I am sitting. I can imagine how difficult it must be for the people living there.”

The McColl dump was created in the mid-1940s, when oil companies deposited high-octane military aviation fuel waste in 12 sumps operated by Eli McColl, an oil industry consultant who leased the eight acres from ranchers.

City records from 1946 show that a permit for the dump site was revoked by the Fullerton City Council, but there appear to have been no subsequent efforts to cover or clean the sumps of the viscous black sludge.

The dump now sits under a vacant field and part of the Los Coyotes Country Club golf course. It is bordered on three sides by expensive, well-tended homes. When the controversy over the dump’s noxious odors surfaced in 1978 and 1979, junked cars, tires and other discards could be seen in some of the pits.

State health officials have determined that the refinery waste contains highly toxic sulfuric acid, benzene and arsenic. Before a canvas cover and layers of dirt were placed over the sumps, sulfur dioxide fumes caused residents to suffer headaches, nausea and respiratory problems, especially during hot weather.

Miscarriages Reported

Residents said some reports suggested a high incidence of miscarriages among pregnant women in the neighborhoods around McColl, but none conclusively linked them to the dump.

Today, mustard plants and weeds have taken over the fenced site near Rosecrans Avenue and Sunnyridge Drive. An occasional rodent scurries between discarded metal drums, remnants of the long-planned cleanup project.

A high-tech truck shower and decontamination bay stands unused, as do digital scales for weighing rigs that were to have hauled away the waste. At one of several office trailers left behind, security guards stand vigil around the clock.

At the outer edges, beer bottles, fluorescent light tubes, an oil-painting kit and other junk have been tossed over the fence.

At the northeast corner, a well monitors for contamination of ground water far below the sump bottoms.

Oozed to Surface

At half a dozen spots, the sludge has finally oozed to the surface and spread like a slow-moving lava, despite efforts more than two years ago to trap it under thick covering and mounds of earth. Dried, the material probably is not harmful to the touch, but state project director Ashok Ramnaney said it can be highly corrosive to skin when in a semi-liquid state.

The seeps are small, most no more than two feet across. But EPA and state health officials fear renewed odors while studies are under way. This week, the agencies plan to remove 100 cubic yards of surface soil at depths ranging from two to six feet to alleviate pressure on the jelly-like waste.

The legal battles around McColl are not dissimilar to the hodgepodge of chemicals that make up the toxic waste itself.

- First, there is the complex legal question of whether hazardous-waste cleanup projects are exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act, as the state contended in Kern County.

The state attorney general’s office has argued that environmental impact reports are unnecessary: One, because cleanup will “improve the environment”; two, because there is an overriding public health concern to eliminate these sites quickly with a minimum of bureaucratic red tape.

The cities of Fullerton and neighboring Buena Park and the Southern California Assn. of Governments disagreed, warning the project officials that they are leaving themselves wide open to court challenge.

But officials for the state toxics unit compared requiring environmental documentation to making a fire truck on its way to a burning house stop for all the red traffic signals.

Superior Court Judge H. Walter Croskey did not agree. In a sweeping decision handed down May 31, Croskey held that the McColl project posed significant environmental hazards and ordered all cleanup measures halted pending a full environmental impact report.

From the EPA’s point of view, the original studies that went into the McColl cleanup plan were equivalent to an environmental impact report anyway, Bisson said. But since the state toxics division decided not to risk setting unfavorable legal precedent by appealing Croskey’s decision, the EPA is obliged to go along, she said.

- Then there are the private lawsuits filed by homeowners against a long list defendants allegedly responsible for building homes near a toxic waste dump.

The 143 families--who live in tracts known as Fullerton Crest, the Meadows and the Islands--have claimed that government officials, developers, sales agents and other businesses associated with construction of the three tracts should have warned them of the dangers of the toxic landfill. They have claimed that their health has been endangered and their property values diminished.

If the complex and tangled case proceeds to trial, it is estimated that it will take up to two years to complete, a costly prospect that alarms defendants and administrators for the Orange County Superior Court. As a result, there has been a considerable push to seek pretrial settlements.

So far, Superior Court Judge Jerrold S. Oliver has managed to reduce the number of defendants by nearly half and reach cash settlements totaling $3.09 million. Attorneys for the homeowners believe that figure is only a small part of the final total since the primary defendants, the developers and the City of Fullerton remain.

Key Allegations Dropped

However, in separate court actions recently, Superior Court Judge Robert Todd dismissed key allegations against Fullerton that could significantly reduce its liability. Todd, who is handling the March 10 trial and pretrial motions, held that the city is immune from allegations that it was negligent in its inspection procedures and negligently failed to disclose the existence of the toxic-waste dump to home buyers.

Oliver has scheduled another marathon settlement conference for Feb. 13. In a recent court hearing, the judge told attorneys for philanthropist and developer William Lyon and others that he expects meaningful negotiations to occur.

Lyon’s construction company is a primary defendant in both the Islands and Meadows suits. Other defendants include the City of Fullerton and grading contractor C. W. Poss.

Defendants remaining in the Fullerton Crest lawsuit include Fullerton; the J. F. Shea Co., the developer; and Coates & Wallace Co., the sales agent.

- In other negotiations, the state, EPA and Canonie are trying to work out a settlement for the November termination of the cleanup contract. EPA officials said Canonie has been awarded $1.6 million for work done through September. The company so far has received about $1 million, half of which was passed to subcontractors on the project.

Excavation and tests at McColl this week are expected to cost about $60,000, project officials said.

Part of the cost is for intensive air monitoring for noxious emissions during excavation. Work will be halted “if unsafe levels are detected,” EPA and state health officials said in a joint letter sent last week to more than 900 area residents.

Excavated dirt will be stored on site, and any soil contaminated with the toxic sludge will be kept in containers or securely covered, said Robert Borzelleri, spokesman for the state Department of Health Services’ toxics division, the lead agency for cleanup of McColl.

“We’ll move it as far away from houses as possible,” Borzelleri said.

Graded With New Soil

The seeps will be sampled for chemical tests. And some areas will be graded with new soil to help control odors. Markers will be placed on slopes around the site and checked periodically for movement. Work was scheduled to begin today and end by next Monday.

Later this month, EPA crews plan to sink seven new wells on site to expand a search for potential ground-water contamination.

Borzelleri said state officials will announce dates of public meetings to discuss the scope of the environmental impact study. Public comment also will be sought when a draft of the environmental report is ready.

State and federal officials hope the work can be finished by next January. But to examine all possible cleanup methods, as EPA and state toxics officials say they plan to do, could take as much as 18 months.

Beyond that, there is also concern for further legal challenges. “We can’t overlook the possibility (that) we are not finished with them yet,” Borzelleri said.

Houses Hard to Sell

Meanwhile, many homeowners near McColl have decided to cut their losses and move. But some are finding that their properties remain on the market for months without bidders.

Shirley Strand, whose backyard abuts McColl, said she and her husband won’t even try to sell their home again until the dump is cleaned up. Several years ago, Strand said, the house was on the market for nearly a year without so much as a single offer.

“People would love the house, but when they’d get to the upstairs bedroom, they’d be looking right onto the pits,” Strand said. “That was it.”

But Jae Woo Lee, one of many Koreans buying homes in the McColl area, didn’t seem bothered by living near the dump site.

A wealthy garment manufacturer who recently emigrated from Brazil with his wife and three sons, Lee said he was informed about the dump and the plans for its cleanup when he bought the sprawling house for $240,000 last year.

Asked if the disclosure concerned him, Lee said with a grin: “I don’t worry about too much.”