News About Escondido Dump Is Both Good, Bad

Escondido neighbors of a toxic waste dump received good news and bad news Friday.

Dangerous contaminants from the Chatham Brothers barrel yard, where industrial wastes had been dumped since 1941, have not spread beyond the dump’s boundaries, according to ground-water tests of surrounding areas.

However, the same tests showed that toxic materials within the site are almost four times the amount estimated earlier. And the cleanup budget won’t stretch to cover that amount of contamination.

Ground Water Untouched

Jim Marxen, spokesman for the state’s Toxic Substances Control Division, said drilling tests confirmed what experts had predicted: that petroleum distillates, heavy metals, including lead, and chemical wastes, including PCBs, had not permeated ground water.

Neighbors, some of whom still depend on private wells for drinking water, were relieved by the report, although tests found at least one high concentration of acetate east of the dump. If the carcinogens had migrated from the site into local ground-water supplies, the nearby Lake Hodges reservoir, which supplies water for the Rancho Santa Fe and San Dieguito area, might have been tainted.

The report will be presented to a community advisory committee July 31, Marxen said.

The most recent study, distributed locally this week, shows that there are about 1,500 cubic yards of toxic waste within the dump’s boundaries--more than can be removed within the present budget for Chatham cleanup, according to Marxen. Earlier studies had estimated that dangerous on-site materials amounted to about 400 cubic yards of sludge.

Removal of all the toxic material will require an additional $180,000, Marxen said.

Jack Kearns, regional director of the toxics division, has said that he would not tackle just a partial cleanup. It is Kearns’ belief, said Marxen, that more funds should be sought to completely remove the toxic wastes. Cleanup is now budgeted at $260,000.

‘Get More Funds’

State Sen. William Craven, R-Oceanside, who last year was instrumental in getting more money for the stalled Chatham cleanup project, said he had not seen the latest test results, “but if we need more funds to get the job done, then I guess we will have to get more funds.”

Present plans call for the cleanup to begin by February. The dump sits in the center of a fast-developing Escondido residential area.

Marxen said about $4 million in uncommitted toxic cleanup money is included in a budget bill awaiting action by Gov. George Deukmejian. If the bill is approved, the Chatham cleanup could be financed with a small part of the unallocated money, he said.

The Chatham site, which was closed to industrial waste in 1980, is on the state’s Superfund list but has been passed over for years as more serious pollution problems surfaced around the state.

Escondido officials, environmental groups and residents near the site have appealed to the state to solve the problem, which state toxic control experts had previously estimated would require as much as $13 million.

County toxics experts suggested last year that the cleanup could be done for a fraction of that cost if state officials moved the contaminants to a certified toxic waste disposal dump instead of disposing of the material through sophisticated but expensive toxic waste burning.