FULLERTON : McColl Test Burn Expected in Early ’90

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency expects to conduct a test burning of hazardous waste at the site of the abandoned McColl dump by early next year, according to an agency newsletter mailed to Fullerton residents Monday.

Reporting on the agency’s test burn in March at a laboratory in La Jolla, the newsletter stated that burning hazardous waste incinerator-style is “satisfactory.”

While the test burn at the McColl site was tentatively set for February, the newsletter said a final decision will not be made until December.

The agency’s conclusions, however, were criticized by Bill Duchie, a spokesman for a coalition of oil companies facing the expected multimillion-dollar costs of cleaning up the World War II-era dump for refinery wastes, as creating “more questions than answers.”

“When the agency did its test burn in La Jolla, our primary concern was the emission levels,” Duchie said.

Duchie, a spokesman for Shell Oil Co. and the McColl Site Group, said the EPAs has not proven that incineration is non-polluting and that arsenic vapors would not endanger residents.

“The EPA claims that arsenic is one of the primary ingredients that poses a risk at the site,” Duchie said. “And so obviously any (waste-burning) technology would have to address that concern for arsenic.”

The EPA has conceded that incineration at the site may violate local air-quality standards. But EPA officials were not available for comment.

Duchie also pointed out that the test burn in La Jolla used McColl waste with a sulfur content no greater than 5% -- because of the EPA’s own restrictions. Much of the waste on the site contains higher sulfur content, he said.