State Plans $1-Million Cleanup at Oil Refinery

A $1-million cleanup of hazardous substances at a bankrupt oil refinery in Canyon Country will begin within the next two weeks, state health officials announced Wednesday.

The state Department of Health Services will drill for soil samples to determine the extent of environmental contamination caused by oil and fuel spills at the five-acre Lubrication Company of America site east of the Antelope Valley Freeway, said Richard Varenchik, an agency spokesman.

“We are going to go in and clean it up within the next week or two,” Varenchik said. “Right now we are assessing what we’ve got there.”

On Tuesday, state inspectors with the Toxic Substances Control Program were at the plant attempting to identify what materials are still being stored on the premises in barrels and tanks.

The plant operated at the site in the 12500 block of Lang Station Road between 1960 and 1987, authorities said. The facility primarily recycled and stored waste oil and fuels, such as those pumped from retired U.S. Navy ships in San Diego, a state report says.

The report says there has been a history of spills on the property that caused surface contamination, including a northern portion of the facility where “what appear to be oil and grease form a thin veneer over the soil.”

“Previous site inspections observed open and leaking drums containing a petroleum material of liquid and sludge consistency,” the report says.

The report concludes that surface runoff from some spills was carried in a nearby drainage ditch to the dry bed of the Santa Clara River.

Varenchik said preliminary tests of water from two wells on the north and south sides of the property were inconclusive as to whether ground water had been contaminated.

He said the state agency plans to take about 150 soil samples from various locations and depths on the property that will be studied for signs of contamination.

Money for the cleanup came from a 1984 bond that raised funds for a statewide cleanup of hazardous substances.

Under an agreement with Grant Ivey, owner of Lubrication of America, the property will be sold, and the state will be reimbursed for cleanup costs of up to $1.4 million, Varenchik said.