Ground Water Tainted by Fuel Seepage at L.A. Airport

Jet fuel has seeped nearly 100 feet into the soil beneath fields of storage tanks at Los Angeles International Airport and has contaminated ground water, officials said.

But they stressed that the contamination, discovered when an oil company drilled test holes around some tanks, poses no immediate risk to public health because no drinking water is drawn from that area. The risk of fire posed by fuel deep in the soil is “absolutely zero,” said a city Fire Department inspector.

Still, the seepage of flammable, toxic jet fuel is regarded as a “serious problem” that will require investigation and cleanup, said Hank Yacoub, supervising engineer for the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board, the local arm of the state agency that investigates ground-water pollution.

He also said similar jet fuel contamination of soil and water “undoubtedly” exists at other airports. “If it’s at LAX, then definitely it’s at Long Beach Airport, at Burbank Airport,” Yacoub said.

The exact sources and extent of the pollution will not be known until more studies are made, he said. The fuel is thought to have resulted from a series of small spills at the airport’s vast tank farms, said Tom Kinley, a Los Angeles Fire Department inspector.

The tank farms contain a maze of pipes and tanks, both buried and exposed, through which several million gallons of fuel pass daily, he said. After 25 years of operation at that volume, it is “not surprising” that contamination was discovered, he said.

The contamination came to light after a routine inspection of the tank farm in May by an inspector from the Hazardous Waste Control Division of the county Department of Health Services.