McColl Dump Soil to Be Burned in Test

In a significant step toward eventual cleanup of Fullerton’s McColl dump, a long-awaited test burn of hazardous wastes and contaminated soil from the abandoned dump will begin Monday in an experimental La Jolla incinerator.

A plan by Ogden Environmental Services to incinerate 30 barrels of contaminated soil, refinery waste and oil-drilling muds from the McColl dump overcame its final regulatory obstacle Thursday, when the San Diego County Air Pollution Control District issued final approval for the test burn.

And on Friday, the city of San Diego and a community group decided not to seek a court order to halt the start-up of the controversial incinerator atop Torrey Pines Mesa, where residents and businessmen had opposed the plan over health and safety concerns.

Ogden plans to begin heating up the incinerator Monday morning, but it will probably not reach the 1,425-degree temperature necessary to handle the waste until early Tuesday morning, said Joe Charest, a publicist for the company. He said that the test burn is scheduled to end Thursday but that results from the experiment will take several weeks to analyze.

McColl’s acidic sludge, which contains 32 compounds, including 18 suspected carcinogens, will be fed into Ogden’s 1,425-degree incinerator for 8 to 12 hours each day in an effort to demonstrate that the process effectively destroys the hazardous waste and does not pose a health or safety threat to surrounding development.

The Ogden test is the first of at least three demonstration burns of samples of the wastes at McColl, including one scheduled at the dump in the foothills of western Fullerton this summer.

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the best way to dispose of the 150,000 tons of refinery waste and oil-drilling muds buried at the World War II-era dump is to excavate and burn the hazardous materials on site. State and local officials support the plan. But a coalition of five oil companies, which the EPA contends are responsible for the cleanup of the dump, opposes incineration, favoring its own plan to “cap” the sludge in the ground.

A final decision by the EPA to proceed with incineration is not expected until August, and it may hinge on the results from the test burns, including the one at Ogden. Experts will monitor the level of emissions from the Ogden incinerator’s exhaust stack, as well as the toxicity of ash residue left behind when the hazardous wastes are burned.

On Friday, San Diego city attorneys briefly contemplated a last-ditch effort to block the experiment, but abandoned the plan because they lacked the time or any obvious reason for filing suit.

“In looking at it, we can’t see anything that can be done on this short notice,” said Assistant City Atty. Ronald Johnson. “We can’t find a basis for it on a real quick and dirty look.”

Johnson said that Mayor Maureen O’Connor, City Manager John Lockwood, and City Atty. John Witt have emergency powers under provisions of the City Charter but that they cannot be exercised to stop the test burn, which has been reviewed and approved by federal, state and local regulatory agencies.

Attorneys will continue reviewing the matter over the weekend but currently intend to brief the San Diego City Council on the experiment at the next scheduled council meeting April 3.e

Opponents have for years worked to stop the burn because Ogden’s site in the GA Technologies Research Park is near heavily populated facilities, including UC San Diego, three hospitals, a child care center, residential tracts, the Torrey Pines State Reserve and the Torrey Pines Inn.