Officials Seek Local Support for Test Burn at McColl Site

In an unusual effort to win support for a test burn of toxic waste at the McColl dump, Rep. William E. Dannemeyer (R-Fullerton) and four other elected officials have drafted a letter formally asking local officials to back the test plan before the South Coast Air Quality Management District.

“There is no doubt in my mind that if . . . you have the unanimity of the representatives of government suggesting a certain course, it’s going to have a better reception on the part of the air quality district,” Dannemeyer said in an interview Wednesday.

“It clearly sends a message to the oil companies involved that capping the site is unacceptable,” said Linda LeQuire, a former Fullerton mayor who now works for state Sen. Edward R. Royce (R-Anaheim), who also signed the letter.

Dannemeyer, who organized the letter-writing campaign, and other officials said Wednesday that they believe that the letter represents the first time a group of local public officials has called on other officials to support the test-burning proposal for the abandoned dump, which has been designated for cleanup under the federal Superfund program.

“To know that public officials are supportive of (the test burn) reflects public opinion, in a way, too,” said Fullerton Mayor Molly McClanahan, another signatory. A strong showing of public support for the test plan could have “an important impact” on the air quality district’s decision, McClanahan said.

The air quality district must approve the burn because it would emit some waste materials into the air, and some AQMD officials have expressed concern about whether such an incinerator could meet stringent air quality standards in the already polluted basin. The entire project, including assembly of a portable incinerator, would last about 3 months, but the burn itself is expected to last about a month. If approved by the air quality district, the test burn could begin as early as this fall.

The one-page letter is to be mailed later this week to congressional representatives, state legislators and county supervisors whose districts adjoin the McColl dump, said Brett Barbre, Dannemeyer’s district representative in Fullerton.

The five oil companies that are being held responsible for dumping about 150,000 tons of sulfur-based refinery waste at the 8-acre McColl site in Fullerton consistently have opposed a plan to excavate the sludge and burn it in an on-site incinerator at an estimated cost to the companies of $117 million.

Instead, the oil companies--Shell, Arco, Phillips Petroleum, Texaco and Unocal--have proposed capping the site with a synthetic or clay cover to prevent the noxious sludge from oozing to the surface. That plan would cost an estimated $22 million.

However, Bill Duchie, a spokesman for the McColl Site Group, a consortium that represents four of the five oil companies, said his group would support a test burn at the site as long as it meets air quality standards and is of sufficient length and intensity to mirror actual incinerator operating conditions.

“We have some very significant concerns about the ability to control sulfur dioxide,” an irritant emitted during the incineration process, Duchie said.

The plan to incinerate the McColl waste, proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency and the state Department of Health Services, has won the grudging support of many of the 1,000 homeowners who live within a half-mile of the World War II-era dump.

Since housing developments were built in the area in the late 1970s, residents have complained of noxious odors and illnesses they believe are caused by the industrial waste buried at the McColl site.

The EPA is not expected to make a final decision on the proposed incineration plan until at least August, after it has fully analyzed data collected during a test burn of McColl waste by Ogden Environmental Services at its facility in La Jolla.

Earlier this month, EPA officials said preliminary results indicate the test was a success. The company’s “circulating bed combustor” process destroyed toxic wastes in the sludge without releasing “significant levels of hazardous organic compounds” into the air, the EPA concluded.

However, the EPA said it is still trying to determine if the La Jolla test met emission standards for sulfur dioxides, nitrogen oxides and particulates, which contribute to smog.

An initial plan to remove toxic wastes from the McColl site and truck them to a dump in Kern County was halted by a 1985 court order that required officials to prepare an environmental impact report. That report was finally completed earlier this year. But Congress in the interim ordered the EPA to put a high priority on the permanent destruction of all toxic wastes. Partly in response to that mandate, the EPA developed an incineration plan for the tainted sludge at McColl.

In the letter signed by Dannemeyer, Royce, McClanahan, Assemblyman Ross Johnson (R-La Habra), and Orange County Supervisor Gaddi H. Vasquez, the officials call on their colleagues to “join us in expressing support for a test burn at the McColl site.”

The letter adds: “. . . Thermal destruction offers us the most cost-effective and permanent solution as required by congressional mandate. . . . This test burn would bring us one step closer, after (more than) 10 years of litigation, studies and countless delays, to cleaning up the site.”