22 Cited Firms to Be Monitored for Toxic Wastes : Private Sewage Systems Test High for Chemicals

City inspectors have cited 22 San Fernando Valley companies they found had high concentrations of hazardous chemicals in cesspools and septic tanks that by law can only be used for disposal of uncontaminated sewage.

In a few cases, concentrations of a suspected cancer-causing chemical were 50 times higher than legal limits, according to laboratory reports prepared for the Los Angeles City Bureau of Sanitation.

The high readings do not necessarily mean those firms have contributed to pollution of the area’s ground water, but any measurement of chemicals that exceeds standards is a violation of the law, said Mal Toy, the bureau’s assistant division head for waste-water management.

Result of First Surveillance

The citations, along with nine made last September, are the result of the first surveillance by the Bureau of Sanitation of private sewage-disposal systems. Several years ago, such systems were identified as being used for the illegal disposal of chemical waste.

Private sewage-disposal systems, usually consisting of a septic tank connected to a cesspool, are designed to trap solid waste, which is then degraded by bacteria. Liquid waste filters down through the system into the soil. These systems are fine for so-called “clean” waste, for example, human waste or waste water from washing, but many chemicals can pass right through, Toy said.

Cesspools “are nothing more than bottomless tanks,” said Hank Yacoub, supervising engineer for the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board, the local arm of the state agency that monitors ground-water pollution and which pushed for the city inspections.

The surveillance program is meant to warn “bad actors,” businesses that are tempted to dispose of chemical waste in septic tanks before the city forces them to switch to sewer lines, in which illegal dumping of chemicals is more easily monitored, Toy said.

Firms Could Face Investigation

Businesses that are cited must pump out the contents of their disposal systems, face follow-up inspections and, if a serious case arises, could face criminal investigation, he said.

Water-quality officials have long been concerned that industrial septic tanks and cesspools were contributing to chemical contamination of ground water. The Valley has been an area of special concern since 1979, when traces of two suspected cancer-causing chemicals were first discovered in some of the city water wells in North Hollywood and near Griffith Park that supply about 15% of Los Angeles’ drinking water.

Until the testing program began, the city’s efforts were focused on getting businesses to abandon septic tanks and cesspools altogether and switch to sewers. But that effort has taken years, officials said.

At latest count of the sanitation bureau, 618 businesses in the Valley still dump sewage in private disposal systems rather than in city sewers, even though they have access to sewer lines. All those businesses last year were given one-year notice to complete the switch to sewers, said Publio Aliwalas, a sanitation engineer.

Dozens of other businesses use septic tanks because they are situated in parts of the Valley that have no sewer lines. Construction of sewers to serve those areas is not expected to be finished until the 1990s.

Recently, 75 firms without sewer connections were identified as high-priority sites where illegal disposal of chemicals was likely to be found. So far, 45 of those sites have had samples drawn and tested. Just under half of them, or 22 sites, were found to be violating limits for a variety of chemicals, Toy said.

‘Plugging Away’

The department is “plugging away” at the remaining 30 sites, he said. In some cases, inspections have been hampered by the fact that many business owners on the list “don’t have the foggiest idea where their cesspools are,” he said.

When a cesspool or septic tank is located, quart samples are drawn and sent to a city-run laboratory where tests are run for the presence of “volatile organic compounds,” said David Thomas, a chemist who is processing the samples.

Volatile organic compounds include many solvents and petroleum byproducts found in industrial waste. The samples are not checked for pesticides or other more exotic chemicals, Thomas said.

Various toxic chemicals have been found in high concentrations.

One, methylene chloride, far exceeded state standards in samples taken from seven Valley businesses. Methylene chloride, which laboratory studies have linked to cancer, is a solvent commonly found in paint removers and is used in many manufacturing processes, including the decaffeinating of some coffee brands, said David Siegel, a staff toxicologist in the environmental hazards assessment division of the state Department of Health Services.

The highest concentration of methylene chloride--2,100 parts per billion, 50 times above the 40 ppb limit--was found in a sample taken from the septic tank of North Hollywood Tool Manufacturing Co., sanitation officials reported.

The same sample also contained twice the allowable level of benzene, a known carcinogen.

Firm Cited Twice

Another site, Chapman Studio Equipment, a North Hollywood manufacturer of cranes for the film industry, was cited twice. Samples taken at that location contained toluene and nonane, both toxic solvents, as well as excessive levels of other toxic chemicals.

Chapman was cited in September but requested more tests because no one at the firm had any idea where the chemicals could have come from, said Ola Seger, secretary-treasurer of the company.

This month, Chapman was cited once again, as a series of new tests turned up a variety of chemicals that should not have been there, according to sanitation officials.

Toy emphasized that the testing program is ultimately a policing action. The tests are precise enough to indicate that hazardous chemicals are present, but not good enough to draw conclusions about the extent of contamination.

For one thing, he said, a high reading could be caused by a pocket of highly concentrated chemicals in one spot in a cesspool. “You probably could take three separate samples and get three separate readings,” Toy said.

Also, without knowing whether a company has been dumping chemicals consistently over time, or has merely dumped a single batch of waste just before a sample was drawn, there is no way to gauge the severity of underlying contamination, he said. “Because we don’t have a history of past practices,” Toy said, “we really don’t know what the readings mean.”

The one measurable result of the surveillance and testing, said Yacoub of the state water board, is that “it has reminded these people that you can’t just dump your waste materials into your toilet plumbing system.”