Soil Tests at Proposed L.A. Prison Site Urged

The Legislature’s auditor general recommended Monday that soil samples be taken to test for hazardous waste contamination on land that Gov. George Deukmejian wants the state to buy for a controversial new prison near East Los Angeles.

Auditor General Thomas Hayes, in a report to the Legislature, raised new questions about selection of the 21-acre parcel, which is located in an industrial area. Among other things, he charged that the state Department of Corrections did not follow its own procedures when it chose the site.

Consequently, he said, the Administration “may not have identified the best site . . . and the completion of the (prison) may be delayed.”

In a response, N.A. Chaderjian, secretary of the Youth and Adult Correctional Agency, which oversees the department, insisted that proper procedures were followed. In addition, he said Hayes, in reaching his critical conclusions, failed to consider the “complex realities of prison siting, particularly at a time when overcrowding constitutes a serious threat to public safety.”

Bordering Parcel

A portion of the proposed prison site was once owned by Southern California Gas Co., and hazardous wastes have been identified along a bordering parcel that the gas company still owns.

Legislative opponents of the prison site have contended that the Administration is rushing to build a prison near a known hazardous waste site without regard to whether the contamination has also flowed into the land where the penal institution would be located.

Hayes said that since no soil samples have been taken, “the state cannot be assured that the Crown Coach site is not contaminated by hazardous waste.” The site is currently owned by the Crown Coach Corp. A gas company environmental manager was quoted in the report as saying there was “no reason to believe” that hazardous waste contamination extends beyond the utility’s current property. But the report said geological structures “under the toxic soil indicate that leaking water could have carried contamination southward to the Crown Coach property, which was not investigated by deep boring of the soil.”

Estimated Value

Hayes further called for a reappraisal of the Crown Coach site, noting that its estimated value--around $5 million--would probably decrease if hazardous waste is found.

Chaderjian disagreed, noting that the Department of Health Services and Southern California Gas are completing an agreement that would require the utility to clean up hazardous wastes if any are found on the Crown Coach site.

“There will be no effect on the appraised value of the property,” he said.

Hayes noted that in examining the Crown Coach property, appraisers did not take into consideration the hazardous wastes in the adjoining gas company property.

“Since the current appraisals of the Crown Coach site did not consider the adjacent hazardous waste site, the appraisal values (for the property) are probably overstated,” he said.

Mission Changed

Hayes charged that the Department of Corrections failed to follow proper site selection procedures when it changed the mission of the proposed Los Angeles prison from one of strictly housing inmates to that of a reception center to process new prisoners before sending them to long-term institutions.

In switching to a reception center, Hayes said, the department did not follow its “standard process” for site selection. He said this included developing standards for a selection and evaluating alternative potential sites. As a result, he said “the department may not have selected the site that is best suited for that type of facility.”

Chaderjian disputed this contention.

Deukmejian, in effect, ignored the auditor general’s report, which was leaked to news organizations by an aide to a legislator who opposes the prison site. In a written response, gubernatorial spokesman Kevin Brett chose to disregard the auditor general’s critical conclusions and, instead, characterized the report as one “concerning prison overcrowding,” a subject mentioned only in passing by Hayes.

“Clearly, we must act, and we must act now,” Brett said. “Every day that passes without action just exacerbates California’s overcrowded prisons. . . . The governor remains convinced that the Crown Coach site, which will serve as an additional economic stimulus to the industrial area of downtown Los Angeles and which is near the court complex, is the best site for a state prison in Los Angeles County.”