City Also Has Cleanup Problem

The Centre City Development Corp. isn’t the only public body having to deal with an underground gasoline contamination problem in downtown San Diego.

The city is planning how to remove 10,000 to 20,000 gallons of underground gasoline that leaked from tanks and lines at the old police station at Market Street and Kettner Boulevard from 1979 to 1983.

It’s estimated that the cleanup will cost the city $500,000 and will take about a year once pumping of the fuel begins. That will probably be in 30 to 45 days, according to Paul Gagliardo, the city official responsible for overseeing that the city’s 180 underground storage tanks comply with new state hazardous waste laws.

The city is under pressure to remove the pollution in part because the property is the domain of the San Diego Unified Port District, which wants to use the land to expand Seaport Village. The Port District won’t accept the return of the old police station until the underground pool of gasoline is removed.

“Because they were city tanks, we know the contamination came from city-owned equipment,” said Gagliardo, explaining that the city’s situation is different in this regard from the problem facing CCDC, which doesn’t know for sure the sources of its 460,000-gallon lake of underground gasoline and diesel fuel.

Gagliardo said that, although the city believes there was as much as 20,000 gallons spilled at the old police station, a consultant’s report estimates the underground pool may actually be closer to 10,000 gallons.