Project Will Boost Efforts to Keep Water, Soil Safe

When owners of Luxe Transportation Systems decided to move their airport shuttle and limousine service in Santa Ana, they quickly discovered the state’s underground tank program.

The state Legislature, concerned about contamination of soil and ground water caused by leaky underground storage tanks, had mandated an ambitious program in 1983 requiring inspection of all such tanks, removal of those that leak and cleanup of all soil and water contamination.

Luxe’s case was routine: the removal of a disused underground fuel tank that apparently was not leaking. Yet it took three months and at least $15,000 to accomplish. Most of the time was spent conducting legally required surveys and tests, submitting proposed plans and applying for permits.

Heard ‘Horror Stories’

But according to the contractors who removed Luxe’s tank, three months is a quick job under the state’s tank program. And Luxe’s general manager, Ed Muncy, said the bill for $15,000 was a bargain. “It can be a real problem if there’s a big leak,” Muncy said. “If there’s a lot of contamination there, it can go into hundreds of thousands of dollars and months and months of delay. I’ve heard some real horror stories.”

State and county officials, however, praise Orange County for its aggressive enforcement of the regulations. They say the county was one of the few to begin enforcement soon after the laws went into effect. By contrast, Los Angeles began enforcement July 1.

So far in Orange County, no drinking water has been found contaminated by leaky underground tanks, and enforcement officials do not believe any known leaks present an imminent danger. This is in large part due to luck, officials say. Where the county’s underground drinking water is shallow, layers of clay have slowed down seepage of contaminants, and where there are no clay layers, the drinking water apparently has been deep enough to avoid contamination--so far.

But officials do not expect that kind of luck to last forever. In Orange County, as elsewhere, underground tanks are virtually everywhere--not only in industrial areas but at service stations, convenience stores, carwashes, dry cleaners and government buildings. Most contain gasoline, diesel fuel or industrial solvents, and a big leak in the wrong place could cause significant drinking-water contamination.

Of the 8,110 underground tanks in Orange County, more than three-fourths have been inspected during the 4 1/2 years of the program; statewide, little more than half have been inspected. About a third of the tanks in Orange County are being continuously monitored for possible leaks, as required by law.

12% Leaking

Inspections showed that about 12% of the tanks were leaking, and so far, contamination from less than half of those leaking tanks has been cleaned up. Local agencies throughout the state have found leak rates of between 10% and 25%.

Yet Orange County is considered one of the more aggressive regions in this cleanup effort. While testing of underground storage tanks has lagged badly statewide, Orange County seems to have made more progress than the large majority of the 42 cities and 58 counties in the state responsible for inspection.

And prospects for more progress are good, since the county is part of a new inspection and contamination cleanup program that for the first time is funneling state and federal money into local tank programs.

In a 15-month period ending July 30, 1989, about $9.1 million will have gone to 10 local agencies in California, and Orange County will have received as much as $1.06 million to fill the equivalent of 15 new positions in its underground tank program. The new positions, once filled, will double the county staff devoted to the underground tank program.

But even in Orange County, short staffing of the Santa Ana Regional Water Quality Control Board, the state agency that oversees cleanups of ground water in Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties, has created a backlog of several hundred cases. Orange County cases are sometimes shelved for months or even a year or more because of the regional board’s small staff, county officials say.

Local officials say that this sometimes stops businesses willing to clean up contamination from moving ahead. And it allows ground-water contamination to spread, increasing the already enormous costs of cleanup and increasing the chances that contamination will spread to drinking-water wells.

Orange County officials say they have discovered more than 300 leaking tanks that have contaminated ground water, including a number that pose a potential threat to drinking-water supplies. So far they have not been able to directly link contamination of water wells to underground tanks.

But county officials are not writing off the possibility that drinking water could be fouled in the future and say they are proceeding as quickly as they can.

“Statewide, one big problem has been this lead agency aspect” of cleanups, said Robert E. Merryman, manager of the county’s environmental health division. “We (the county) have cleaned up a number of ground-water cases. It would have been negligent of us just to have these cases sit because the regional board did not have sufficient staff to approach the problem.”

Everything Cleaned Up

One example of this was an underground fuel tank that leaked into Huntington Harbour in September, 1985. “We volunteered to take the lead. The spill was not significant, and everything got cleaned up,” Merryman said.

But while the county can respond to such cases of water contamination, its legal mandate is to handle cases where only soil is contaminated, and it has been able to begin work on such cases promptly, Merryman said.

But he is hopeful that the new pilot program will help the county dramatically reduce the backlog of ground-water cases by allowing it to assume some of the traditional responsibilities of the regional water board.

Under the pilot program, Orange County acts as the lead agency not only in soil cases but in ground-water contamination cases, tracking them from the first report of a leak until final cleanup.

Still, the understaffed regional water board must provide technical support, particularly on complicated cases, and must approve cleanup plans, issue discharge permits and approve sites once they have been cleaned up.

Good Relationship

Merryman said his agency has a good relationship with the state board covering Orange County. County engineers have switched to state investigative formats, “so we’re hoping for quick sign-offs on cleanup plans. We hope to go directly to the executive director and the (regional water) board so we don’t have to have a lot of board staff time spent on them,” Merryman said.

Unlike many other cities and counties, Orange County hired new people to handle the tanks program, instead of assigning more work to the same staff. So far, the county program has been virtually self-supporting, funded by the fees it charges tank owners, county officials said.

Kurt Berchtold, head of the tanks program for the state regional water board based in Riverside, said that the board is understaffed but that serious water contamination cases are all handled promptly.

The regional board has about 700 open cases and only a three engineers to handle them. Twenty-five “significant cases” per engineer is a reasonable workload at any one time, he said. “A lot of the ground-water cases are of relatively minor significance.”

“We don’t have an identified backlog per se,” he said. There may be cases that have been pending for two or three years, he said, but they involve no real threat to water supplies. “We do attempt to follow up on those where ground water will likely be impacted,” he said.

Spread Thin

“We’re really spread thin, and it’s created a problem. In some cases, we’re not able to give the attention the local agency or site owner would like. But I don’t think it’s created any major problem. This will be addressed in some fashion by the pilot program.”

That program will give his staff time to work on cases “that really pose a significant threat to water quality,” he said.

In Orange County, the cities of Santa Ana and Orange chose to manage their own tank inspection program. The rest of Orange County falls under county jurisdiction where, officials reported last July 31, 375 of 820 reported tank leaks had been cleaned up. The rest--more than half--are still pending.

“We have cases reported in 1984 that are still ongoing cases, and we also have cases initiated in 1988 that are completed,” said John J. Hills, program manager of the county’s waste-management division. “Our (completion) time has been pretty good compared to other agencies.”

Berchtold, of the state board, agreed. “Their program is quite aggressive in respect to the cleanup end. Of the five local agencies (in Berchtold’s region), they are the ones that have been most active in pursuing cleanup. They’ve been pushing things as far as they can push them with the tank owners.”

Large Backlog

According to Seth J. Daugherty, Hills’ supervising hazardous-waste specialist, the first inspection of a tank and the assessment of how serious a leak may be are done by private firms hired by the tank owner.

“Sometimes those reports are substantial. There’s a pretty large backlog there,” Daugherty said. Cleanup plans are proposed based on those reports, “but what often happens is you find out later you need to do more.”

With the additional specialists funded under the pilot program, Orange County officials believe they eventually will overcome the backlog. “It may take a few years though,” Hills said. “On an ideal basis, I think we can get under control in three years or so.”

That is not an unreasonable delay, Daugherty said, because in Orange County, the spread of contaminants “is naturally slow. But we are concerned, because we can’t be sure that eventually it won’t be a problem.”

More than half of Orange County’s drinking water is imported from the Colorado River or from Northern California. The 40% that is pumped from wells comes from ground water that is as much as 150 feet below the surface, and much of it is capped by a layer of clay, which slows seepage from above.

Therefore, pollutants from tank leaks can take a long time--sometimes decades--to reach the drinking water below. But when they do, they can become a significant health hazard. Such substances as benzene, which is contained in motor fuels and is a known carcinogen, can dissolve into water and be carried along with it.

Many tank owners, especially oil companies, have been very cooperative in removing leaking tanks and beginning an inspection, replacement and monitoring program, Merryman said. Given the county’s shortage of enforcement staff, seeking voluntary compliance will be more effective than mandating inspections and continuous monitoring by a specific deadline, Merryman said.

“So that’s why we don’t have all our permits issued, and for that, I take some criticism,” he said.

The county has taken no tank owner to court to force testing and monitoring of tanks as required by law, Merryman said. “It’s hard for us to punish somebody if we haven’t gotten everybody really on line yet. You need substantial compliance with the law first,” he said.

Only half of state’s tanks have been tested. Part I, Page 1.

CONTAMINATION IN ORANGE COUNTY

These are the major cases of contamination resulting from leaking underground storage tanks in Orange County. Cases are listed chronologically.

Rockwell International, Newport Beach--In January, 1984, waste solvent tanks installed when the plant was owned by Collins Radio Co. were reported to be leaking. The amount of leakage was unknown. Contamination of soil and ground water was judged to be extensive. Tanks were removed. Soil vapor extraction has been under way since October, 1984. About 10 million gallons of ground water have been extracted and cleaned. There is no estimate of when cleanup will be completed.

Marine Corps air stations, El Toro and Tustin--Irrigation wells west of the El Toro base show contamination from TCE, a solvent used for degreasing machinery and a suspected carcinogen. County and state officials assume the contamination came from the military base, which used large quantities of the solvent until 1975, but they are unsure whether it came from underground tank leaks.

There are about 200 underground tanks at the El Toro base, about 73 at the Tustin base, most holding jet or diesel fuel. The first tank leak was reported in July, 1986. So far, there are five cleanup operations under way at El Toro, two at Tustin.

County officials complain that progress is slow and that legally required monitoring systems have not been installed. Marines blame the slow pace on the difficulties in contracting work for so many tanks. The El Toro cleanup has been nominated for federal Superfund designation, which would bring federal Environmental Protection Agency oversight of the project.

County officials say the situation has not been assessed sufficiently to determine the extent of contamination. Marine officials have permitted county and state inspection of their tanks but insist that the county has no authority to charge fees in this case and have refused to pay.

They have also refused to comply with a state order to assess contamination outside the base boundaries but have informally agreed to reimburse the Orange County Water District for such a study if it finds that the base is responsible for the contamination. So far, the district has found TCE contamination as deep at 500 feet in wells drilled off the base. The district’s final report is due in December.

Rainbow Disposal, Huntington Beach--In September, 1986, it was reported that at least 108,000 gallons of diesel fuel had leaked from a ruptured underground line. Rainbow officials at first had suspected the missing fuel was being stolen. Contaminants have been found in the soil, floating atop the ground water and dissolved in slight amounts in the ground water. The ruptured line has been repaired, and floating fuel is being pumped to the surface. Consultants say the contamination has remained under Rainbow Disposal’s property. A cleanup plan has not yet been proposed.

McDonnell Douglas Astronautics, Huntington Beach--In October, 1986, it was reported that a concrete waste tank was suspected of leaking a mixture of solvents. Contamination was judged to be “highly concentrated”in soil and ground water. The tank was removed and assessment of the contamination has begun. There are no definite findings yet and no estimate of when cleanup will begin or be completed.

Reliance Universal, Brea--In December, 1986, it was reported that extraction fittings on tanks were defective and were slowly leaking a mixture of contaminants over perhaps 20 years. Contamination of soil and ground water was judged extensive. Contaminants floating atop the ground water are being pumped to the surface and recycled. Permits to extract contaminated ground water are being sought.

Test wells have found no contamination beyond Reliance property boundaries. There is no estimate of when pumping will begin, but county officials expect that once started, pumping could continue seven or eight years. Company officials say less time may be required.

Crude oil has also been found, suggesting an oil pipeline leak off the site. The regional water board has ordered an investigation of the former Unocal petroleum tank farm nearby as the possible source of the oil.