Marine Base Cleanup Proposal Lauded : Plan to Siphon Contaminants in Tustin ‘Professional, Scientific’

The military’s plan to siphon off contaminated ground water from pits saturated with jet fuel at the Tustin Marine base drew favorable reviews Monday from members of a state water quality board that will consider the plan on Friday.

During a public hearing at Tustin City Hall, Charles C. Bennett of Huntington Beach, a member of the Santa Ana Regional Water Quality Control Board, termed the military’s cleanup plan very “professional and scientific.”

Fellow board member John Leggett indicated that he thought the drainage plan for the contaminated 81,000-square-foot area at the Helicopter Air Station appeared to meet the standards of the state board, one of nine regional boards governing waterways in California. The Santa Ana regional board staff already has recommended approval of the plan.

The military’s plan calls for draining contaminated ground water via perforated pipes that would be installed along the bottom of three 20-foot-deep and 600-foot-long trenches. The pipes would divert the polluted water to a nearby sump, where the contaminants would be pumped into tanks and then routinely hauled to treatment centers in San Diego, said Capt. Stan Holm, director of facility management at the Tustin and El Toro Marine bases.

County Official Differs

But a county environmental official disagreed, charging that the proposed drainage system would not eliminate all health risks from the toxic hydrocarbons. Bob Collacott, chief of the county Environmental Management Agency’s environmental resources section, also criticized the plan for lacking contingency measures in the event that the drainage system failed.

The EMA has proposed a $2-million excavation of the contaminated soil that would be neutralized with unpolluted dirt.

The problem at the Tustin base was identified four years ago when EMA biologists discovered pollutants seeping from the base into the adjacent Peters Canyon Channel, a tributary to the Upper Newport Bay state wildlife reserve. Upon further study, the county discovered that the Marines for years had been dumping jet fuel into 18-foot-deep burn pits for fire-training exercises.

The pits were shut down immediately, but environmental officials believe that thousands of gallons of contaminated water were flushed into the channel about 100 feet away between 1970 and 1983.

Contaminated soil previously was excavated to a depth of 10 feet during initial cleanup measures, but county and state officials had said that they wanted the remainder of the contaminated soils removed. In the meantime, oil recovery wells were installed to recover pollutants.

In May, 1985, the regional board ordered base officials to hasten plans to clean up the pits and, in the interim, to design a plan to prevent further seepage off the base.

In addition to criticizing the cleanup plan Monday, Collacott testified that the Marines consistently have failed to respond to his agency’s requests for information related to cleaning the site.

But Bennett, one of three board members on a subcommittee to examine the problem and the cleanup plan, criticized Collacott, saying that his arguments were incoherent and vague.

“You have created a situation from your lack of detail that we are not going to be able to make a recommendation to our full board,” Bennett said. “If you expect your input to be part of the record for this agency, then you need to have detailed information.”

If the Marines’ plan is approved by the board, construction is expected to be completed by late November at a cost of less than $1 million, military officials said.