Teledyne Ryan Will Clean Drains : But Tells State that PCBs in Bay Are Not Company’s Fault

State water-quality officials and Teledyne Ryan Aeronautical have agreed on a tentative Nov. 1 deadline for the giant San Diego-based defense contractor to clean the storm-drain sumps that regulators say are fouled with cancer-causing PCBs.

Kenneth Carson, a Teledyne Ryan vice president, said Tuesday that the company agreed to the cleanup in an effort to cooperate with the state. But he said the firm denies responsibility for the unusually high levels of polychlorinated biphenyls found in San Diego Bay.

“In the drains themselves, we went to the (state) water board and told them that we would agree to clean up the drains,” Carson said. “The PCBs are there. We don’t know how they got there. But we will clean them up.”

However, Carson emphasized, “We’re not cleaning up the bay, and we don’t profess to be the guilty party in the bay.”

Teledyne Ryan also has agreed to prepare a so-called “best management practices” strategy to prevent future PCB spills into storm drains. Such a strategy is required as part of the waste-discharge permit that the state is requiring the firm obtain.

“It will be a plan of corporate practices that they will implement,” said David Barker, an engineer with the state Water Quality Control Board. “And we will hold them accountable for implementing them in the permit we will issue.”

The permit will bar any discharges other than clean storm runoff.

PCBs are man-made chlorinated hydrocarbons that were used for many years in fluids in transformers and capacitors. Production of PCBs was banned in 1978 in light of evidence that they cause cancer in animals and have harmful health effects on humans.

They still exist, however, in pre-1978 equipment, including transformers and capacitors in use at Teledyne Ryan’s Harbor Drive plant. They are also believed to be used in equipment in other aeronautical facilities and firms nearby.

In July, the water board blamed Teledyne Ryan at least in part for the high PCB levels the board staff had found in the bay for several years. The high levels, among the highest found in California coastal waters, allegedly occurred in Convair Lagoon, beside Harbor Drive.

Teledyne Ryan officials have denied responsibility for the PCBs found in the bay and have challenged the board’s findings of PCBs in sumps on Teledyne Ryan property. They have questioned both the sampling methods that state investigators used and the conclusions they drew from their data.

Also on Tuesday, lawyers for a San Diego woman announced they have sued Teledyne Ryan alleging violation of federal and state environmental laws. The suit’s aim is to force Teledyne Ryan and any other responsible parties to clean up Convair Lagoon.

Michael Aguirre, a former assistant U.S. attorney who is a candidate for San Diego City Council from the 8th District, said the suit was filed in federal court on behalf of Virginia Taylor of San Diego, a longtime resident and environmental activist. The other lawyer in the case is Kenneth Noel, formerly a lawyer with the federal Environmental Protection Agency.

Aguirre, who in July had given the firm 60 days’ notice as required under law, filed two weeks early in light of Teledyne Ryan’s announcement that it would clean its sumps. Aguirre said he wants the court to allow an expert to take samples from the sumps before Teledyne Ryan begins its cleanup.

“The critical part of this is that if they remove all the sediment with the PCBs from the drains, then we will be hard pressed to establish the linkage back to them from the lagoon,” said Aguirre. “So the idea is to get into court and to ask the court to appoint an independent expert or allow us to go in and secure sediment samples so we’ll have those for later on down the road.”

Among other things, the suit demands civil damages to compensate for the environmental damage and public health threat caused by the presence of PCBs in the bay. It also demands that Teledyne clean up the lagoon.

But the water board staff remains undecided on whether removing the contaminated sediment in the lagoon is desirable. Barker said the board will begin looking into that after issuing Teledyne Ryan’s sump cleanup order.

“The only real factor that will be weighed is would it have a worse effect on water quality to remove it and possibly stir up the contamination than to leave it lying as is,” Barker said.

Barker said his office also will begin further testing to determine whether there are other possible sources of the pollution in the lagoon.