McColl Plan Cheers Homeowners : Group Hopes EPA Proposal Is No ‘False Start’

Skeptical neighbors of the McColl dump expressed cautious optimism Wednesday that a plan to incinerate toxic waste on the Fullerton site might be acceptable after all.

Initially, some homeowners expressed disappointment after federal and state officials announced Tuesday that excavating and burning the estimated 150,000 tons of sulfur-based refinery waste is the “preferred method” of permanently cleaning up the 8-acre dump. They said they feared that the incineration plan would cause health and safety problems, especially from noxious clouds of pollutants drifting over the residential neighborhood as the toxic waste is destroyed.

But on Wednesday, after a briefing on the plan from health and environmental officials, leaders of a McColl-area homeowners group said they hope that the incineration plan may eventually end the 10-year battle to clean up Orange County’s worst toxic-waste dump.

“We’re hopeful, very hopeful that this is not a false start, but a real, honest start on the road to permanent solution,” said Joyce Cury, one of three area residents who met Tuesday night with state and federal officials to discuss the incineration plan.

Betty Porras, who lives behind the dump and leads the McColl Dump Action Group, said she received assurances from the officials that several test burns, including one at the dump site, will be conducted to monitor emission levels before any final decision is made on the incineration plan by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and state Department of Health Services.

Those tests, using contaminated refinery waste and oil-drilling muds taken from the McColl dump, could begin as early as next month, EPA spokesman Terry Wilson said.

Referring to the EPA plan, Porras said she “was skeptical at first” but now “believes we finally may be on to an idea that will finish what we have prayed for--the cleanup of that dump.”

The McColl dump is one of about 1,200 contaminated sites around the United States that have been designated to receive federal Superfund dollars. Only about 50 sites have been cleaned up to date, EPA officials said.

For years, the hills surrounding the World War II-era dump operated by Eli McColl went undeveloped. But in the late 1970s, as housing tracts encroached on the long abandoned site, residents began to complain of foul-smelling odors, headaches and nausea. Subsequent studies revealed widespread soil contamination and large deposits of toxic waste in 12 sumps, the result of oil companies discarding residues there from the production of high-octane military aviation fuel in the mid-1940s, and drilling muds in the 1950s.

State health officials determined that the soil contains sulfuric acid, benzene and arsenic.

Plan Halted in 1985

A plan to excavate and haul the contaminants to a landfill in Kern County was halted in May, 1985, by a Superior Court judge, who ordered the state to conduct a full environmental impact study on the cleanup. It is as a result of that study that the EPA has settled on incineration as the preferred method to remove the waste.

Now, residents like Cheryl Siegel, who lives a “short throw” from the dump on Tiffany Place, sense that the EPA’s plan is the answer to the dump dilemma. Siegel and her husband were in the midst of buying their home, which backs up to the dump, when the 1985 excavation plan was stopped just days before digging was to begin.

“We had just entered escrow on the house, confident that the cleanup was under way,” Siegel recalled Wednesday. “There were all kinds of trucks lined up, ready to take that stuff away. Then they were gone, and the work stopped. We were stunned.”

Nearly 4 years later, Siegel, who has two children, said that all she wants is “something done. . . . The longer it sits there, the more frustrated we all become. If incineration is the way to go, we can live with some dirty air to get rid of that stuff in the ground.”

The worst option, she said, is entombing the contaminants in the ground.

A variation of that approach--known as “capping”--is favored by a coalition of oil companies. Federal officials have identified the five companies--Shell Oil, Arco, Phillips Petroleum, Texaco and Unocal--as the parties believed most likely responsible for the wastes on the site.

$22-Million Cost

The capping plan would cost about $22 million and calls for covering the waste with a layer of soil and synthetic material and building clay walls around the contaminants to prevent seepage into the water table. Tests of ground water have indicated that some trace contaminants have seeped into the water table below the site, federal officials have said. But there is no evidence of contamination to drinking water supplies, they said.

The containment plan also calls for a sophisticated collection system to trap and remove potentially volatile gases created by the wastes.

The entire system could be in place within 5 years, and compares favorably in cost when matched against other cleanup options that have been weighed by state and federal officials, said William J. Duchie, a spokesman for the coalition of oil companies called the McColl Site Group.

Duchie said the oil companies oppose the incineration plan offered by the EPA, arguing that it is too expensive and poses a potential threat to local air quality.

The excavation and incineration of the petroleum waste at the McColl site would cost an estimated $117 million, EPA officials said. Hauling the toxic materials to the nearest commercial incineration facility, which federal officials say is in Texas, would cost between $160 and $500 million. To remove all the waste, federal officials estimate that it would take at least 6,000 truckloads.

Seven Years for Cleanup

Cleanup of the dump under either option would take at least 7 years, according to the EPA.

But the plan advanced by the oil companies is “wholly unacceptable,” EPA officials say, because it is untested and lacks adequate environmental safeguards. Residents have echoed those concerns, fearing an earthquake could rupture the containment system and allow the toxic materials to escape.

“Our goal is to remove and dispose of those wastes,” EPA spokesman Terry Wilson said Wednesday from San Francisco.

But before EPA officials proceed with the incineration plan, Wilson said they have scheduled three test burns to monitor air emissions.

Officials for the South Coast Air Quality Management District on Tuesday expressed skepticism that the scheme will meet federal air quality standards for the Southern California basin. The area, already heavily polluted, is under strict federal mandate to meet those requirements.

Meeting Emission Standards

EPA officials have acknowledged that they are not certain the incinerator can be operated within existing emission standards. Depending on the design of the incinerator and the hours it would be operated, Wilson said, they hope the plan will comply.

But because the McColl dump is a designated federal Superfund site, Wilson pointed out that the EPA does not need state or local approval to operate an incinerator at the dump.

Still, Wilson said, it is unlikely the agency will settle on that option if it cannot meet the air quality standards. “We want to be good neighbors,” he said.

Two of the test burns will be conducted off the site, one at a private San Diego-area incinerator and one at an EPA facility in Arkansas, Wilson said.

A third will be conducted at McColl, probably before mid-May, when federal officials are scheduled to begin preparation of the final environmental impact report for the cleanup. Wilson said the actual test burn probably will last about a month.

Portable Incinerator

The plan calls for a portable incinerator, with a 50-foot-tall stack, to be built at the dump. Experts would then monitor the burning of the sludge for, among other things, the rate of hydrocarbon, nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide emissions. Noise levels from the incinerator would also be measured, along with emissions and odors from the excavation process.

To win support for its plan, the EPA outlined the incineration method and the other cleanup options in a nine-page outline mailed Wednesday to 2,000 people, many of them homeowners near McColl dump.

MCCOLL DUMP CLEANUP OPTIONS

The following is a list of options that were studied by the Environmental Protection Agency for cleanup of the McColl dump, a federal Superfund site:

Options: On-site incineration: build a plant at or near the McColl site to burn the sludge. Ash residue would be disposed off site. This option preferred by state and federal environmental and health officials. Estimated Cost: $117 million Cleanup time*: 7 years Options: Excavation and redisposal of 150,000 tons of acidic sludge in another landfill. Estimated Cost: $76 million Cleanup time*: 6 years Options: Closure: cap waste in soil and synthetic cover and enclose in concrete. This option is preferred by oil companies being sued to pay cleanup costs. Estimated Cost: $22 million Cleanup time*: 5 years Options: Containment: place synthetic liners under and around waste. Estimated Cost: $85 million Cleanup time*: 7 years Options: Off-site incineration: excavate and haul waste out-of-state for treatment. Estimated Cost: $160 million-$500 million Cleanup time*: 7 years

*Estimated times do not include about 1 to 2 years for design work or further delays that could result from the filing of lawsuits.

Source: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, February, 1989. Cleaning Up MCColl Dump Burning acidic waste is the preferred method of federal and state environmental and health officials to clean up the McColl dump, a federal Superfund site in Fullerton.