Superfund Status for El Toro--Fast

The El Toro Marine Corps Air Station, long a landmark in Orange County, has become the focus of environmental concern. It turns out that jet fuel, crankcase oil, solvents, paint thinner and paint were once routinely dumped into the ground there. Years later, those compounds may be in danger of seeping into the area’s underground water supply. Federal money is urgently needed to investigate the extent of the contamination and what can be done to contain and clean it up quickly.

The recent addition of the El Toro base to the federal Superfund list of toxic-waste sites should put a priority on this important effort. While federal sites aren’t eligible for Superfund monies--such funding is reserved for sites that are not federally owned--the designation gives the base a priority for cleanup by the Department of Defense. The federal Environmental Protection Agency has identified 14 separate hazardous waste sites at El Toro that will be included in the Superfund designation for inspection, cleanup and monitoring.

Orange County Water District officials say they have found a cancer-causing chemical--trichloro-ethylene, also known as TCE--in a 3-mile-long pool of water extending from the base to areas beneath portions of the city of Irvine. TCE is a strong degreasing agent that was used by the military until the late 1970s to clean jet fighter and helicopter engines. District officials say that if polluted ground water is not removed, it eventually could seep into Irvine’s drinking-water supply.

The Superfund listing comes less than a year after the Marine Corps admitted the possibility that the base might at least be partly to blame for TCE pollution. While the acknowledgement was welcome, base officials ought to have faced up to this possibility sooner. That might have speeded its designation for Superfund status and, with it, action.

El Toro was once an isolated military outpost; now it’s located in the heart of some of Orange County’s most concentrated residential development. With the admission of the base into the environmental rogues’ gallery, money should be allocated as quickly as possible to protect vitally important underground water supplies.