EPA Gives 31 Burbank Businesses Until Dec. 6 to Settle Cleanup Costs

The U. S. Environmental Protection Agency said it will extend settlement negotiations for another two months with Burbank-area firms that it has asked to fund the estimated $70-million Superfund cleanup of Burbank ground-water supplies.

The deadline extension from today to Dec. 6 is the third announced by the agency since the spring, when it designated 31 businesses and property owners potentially responsible for chemical pollution that has closed Burbank’s municipal water supply wells.

The 31 were to be notified by mail late this week of the deadline extension, said Marcia Preston, assistant regional counsel with the EPA in San Francisco. She said the agency thought that another two months “would be useful in trying to work out some sort of settlement.”

Bill Weinischke, a trial attorney with the environmental enforcement section of the Justice Department, which is working with EPA on the Superfund case, said he believed that “we’re making progress” toward a settlement. “I hope we have an agreement” by December, he said.

Deadline Extended

In May, the EPA gave the 31 firms until July 7 to make a good-faith offer to finance the cleanup or face possible legal consequences. The agency extended that deadline into August, but many of the firms either failed to respond or didn’t offer a significant contribution on the grounds that there was no evidence that they had contributed to ground-water pollution.

However, the EPA said four parties made “good-faith” offers, providing a basis for continuing talks with all parties.

The agency has refused to say what any of the companies offered, but Lockheed Aeronautical Systems Co. released the text of its proposal to contribute up to $52 million toward the cleanup.

The evidence linking Lockheed to the problem is far stronger than that against any of the other firms. Tests of soil and ground water are continuing at the other industrial sites.

Lockheed spokesman Ross Hopkins said the latest extension came as no surprise given “the difficulty of getting 31 potentially responsible parties to buy into any kind of a program.”

Hopkins predicted that when a majority reach an agreement, the others will be told: “ ‘This is the proposal; this is what you have to contribute. . . .’ ”

“I’m sure the EPA wants people to agree on a proposal. They’re not interested in fighting it through the courts to get people to participate,” Hopkins said.

Lockheed’s $52-million offer alone appears to cover most of the cost of the 20-year cleanup, but company officials said they believe that the EPA may have underestimated the expenses.

Network of Wells

The EPA has called on the companies to build a network of extraction wells and aeration towers to treat 12,000 gallons of water per minute, enough to meet nearly three-fourths of Burbank’s water needs.

Burbank has temporarily abandoned use of its 10 water supply wells, relying instead on more expensive imported water from the Metropolitan Water District. Water from seven of the city wells exceeds state health standards for trichloroethylene (TCE) or perchloroethylene (PCE), common industrial solvents suspected to raise the risk of cancer when consumed in water over many years. The other three wells have been idled to avoid drawing in pockets of highly contaminated water.

A large area of the San Fernando Valley, including portions of Burbank, North Hollywood and Glendale, has been designated for Superfund cleanup because of TCE and PCE pollution of water supply wells. The Burbank site would be the first to undergo extensive cleanup work.

Under the Superfund program, the EPA orders polluters to clean up toxic sites or does the work and tries to bill those responsible.