Chevron Plant Cleanup Stalls as State Panels Cross Signals

Muddled communication between two state agencies located in the same Los Angeles office building has delayed for one month the cleanup of a massive fuel slick beneath Chevron’s El Segundo oil refinery.

However, a possible one-year delay has apparently been averted, officials now say.

On Monday, the state Department of Health Services surprised and angered Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board members by asking for a last-minute, one-month delay before ordering the ambitious fuel-recovery plan. Health officials said later that the Chevron plan might require a special permit that could take a full year to process.

But on Thursday, after a meeting between health department and water board engineers, the statewide director of the department’s toxic substances control division said the delay should not extend beyond 30 days.

‘Our Goal Is to Avoid Delays’

“I don’t think there will be a problem,” said toxics chief David Willis, deputy director of the California Department of Health Services. “There could be some delay, but it will not be excessive. Our goal is to avoid delays.”

Chevron, which says it is eager to begin the large-scale cleanup, plans to recover millions of barrels of leaked fuel that lie about 20 to 100 feet below the 1,000-acre refinery and under small portions of Manhattan Beach and El Segundo. The fuel forms a layer up to 12 feet thick atop the ground water.

The project involves pumping a fuel-water mixture out of the ground, separating the fuel and then injecting the water back into the same aquifer.

Health officials are concerned because state law requires a permit to dispose of hazardous materials. In this case, the water that would be injected might qualify as a hazardous material because it would still be contaminated after separation from the fuel, Willis said.

However, state law allows health officials to waive the permit requirement if disposal is being monitored by another state agency, he said.

Willis said he expects the water quality board to issue its cleanup order late next month and for Chevron to immediately begin its pumping and reinjection program. The health department will monitor Chevron’s tests of water samples to see if they qualify as hazardous waste. Even if they do, he said, the permit requirement would most likely be waived by the health department.

An additional hurdle could arise if the toxicity of the ground water exceeds not only state standards but also less-stringent federal ones, he said. Then, a permit could not be waived and delays would occur, he said.

Water board engineers said previous tests by Chevron show that the water does not exceed federal limits but has topped state standards at a few locations.

Willis’ statements came after three days of confusion and a few harsh words between the two state agencies most responsible for the cleanup of hazardous materials in this region, the water board and the health department’s toxics division.

Water board directors were stunned Monday when a health services engineer asked the board to delay approval of the cleanup plan, which Chevron had prepared in cooperation with the two agencies.

The engineer refused to explain in detail why his department wanted a delay, which prompted a barrage of angry comments and a letter of protest from the board to top health department officials.

The request was a surprise because health officials had known that water injection was part of the cleanup plan for two years, and a copy of the final plan was hand-delivered to them a month ago, said Ray Delacourt, a water board engineer who supervises the Chevron case.

Usually the two agencies communicate well, since they are in the same building, Delacourt said.

“We walk across the hall and just tell them to stuff it, and we deal with our problems like that,” he said. But this time, “the bottom line is that the DHS fell on their own sword. . . . And that reflects poorly on all government agencies as to their competence.”

In response to the water board’s criticism, health officials said they asked for the delay to make sure the board was aware of the possible permit problem.

In addition, health officials were surprised to find that the polluted ground water would not be cleaned before reinjection, said Ted Rauh, the toxics division’s local director.

Still, health officials quickly apologized for voicing their concerns too late and in a public forum. And after a series of high-level phone calls, the two agencies met Thursday to try again to work out a common strategy.

Water board engineers agreed to clarify a part of the abatement order that health officials said indicated ground water purification might not begin for 20 years, when oil recovery is complete. Delacourt said purification should start within seven years.

Chevron has cooperated in the cleanup effort, spending $36 million so far to treat and investigate the problem, company spokesman Rod Spackman said.

Additional workmen have been hired to install at least 52 extraction wells and 35 injection wells, Spackman said.

Authorities discovered in 1985 that leaks from old tanks, pipes and ponds at the 77-year-old refinery had caused serious ground water contamination. They found that high levels of gasoline vapor had seeped from the water table into a business in El Segundo and four homes in Manhattan Beach.

Because of vapor collection, officials say the fumes pose no safety hazard. Contamination is not an immediate threat to drinking water supplies, they say.

Last month, Chevron estimated the amount of leaked fuel at between 2 million and 6 million barrels, which makes it the largest ground water contamination case in state history.