Toxic Dump Health Study Year Behind Schedule

A health survey of people living around a Monterey Park toxic dump site, prompted by complaints of high disease rates, is nearly a year behind schedule and the findings will not be made public for another three or four months, state health officials have acknowledged.

The officials confirmed the delay in response to complaints from Montebello City Councilman Bill Molinari.

“We’ve asked for it on a number of occasions and they’ve stalled,” Molinari said in a telephone interview Friday. “Apparently there’s no sense of urgency.”

Dr. Raymond Neutra, who oversees epidemiological studies for the state Department of Health Services, said that the $100,000 report has taken a back seat to other priorities--namely, completion of an unrelated study of pollutants for the state Air Resources Board and an unanticipated two-month monitoring program on the impact of aldicarb-contaminated watermelons last summer.

“We were shooting for June of 1985,” Neutra said of his pledge to finish the report. “I like to deliver things on time, but it often happens . . . that unpredictable things come up.”

The study was aimed at assessing whether residents around the Operating Industries landfill in Monterey Park have experienced higher than normal rates of cancer, birth defects, spontaneous abortions and other medical problems. The state has no plans to release the results until the entire process of verifying the survey is completed.

Although the study has not been completed, state health director Dr. Kenneth W. Kizer--Neutra’s boss--has said that 45 acres of the dump site north of the Pomona Freeway does not pose a threat to public health and should be removed from the federal Superfund cleanup list. Kizer personally went to Washington to present his argument directly to the Environmental Protection Agency.

Kizer has, however, urged that the dump site’s remaining 145 acres south of the freeway be on the Superfund list.

In the last week, Kizer has sparred over the issue with EPA officials, who have said that studies show potentially dangerous explosive gases and cancer-causing chemicals at the north 45 acres. The EPA contends that the 45 acres should be studied further.

The survey of 600 homes near the landfill was begun in the spring of 1984 by the state and the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services after residents in Montebello and Monterey Park complained that they were suffering higher than normal rates of respiratory and other diseases. County investigators conducted a door-to-door survey between June and December of 1984 and turned over their findings to the state.

Marc Strassburg, a county public health investigator, said he has regularly asked for results of the study, but has been told that “the state office is so overburdened they kept getting higher priorities.”

Neutra said it is common for such health studies to take two or three years. He said he would prefer that his investigators fully study the survey data rather than rush to finish a report “with a lot of question marks.” The Senate Rules Committee previously had approved Gov. George Deukmejian’s nomination of Kizer as director, but in the wake of the controversy the panel has asked the appointee to reappear next week to explain his position.