Edwards, Pendleton Bases Proposed for Addition to List of Toxic Cleanup Sites

Edwards Air Force Base, contaminated by nitric acid, solvents and other volatile substances, has been proposed for the first time as one of 94 national environmental priority sites, according to a report released Friday.

Camp Pendleton Marine Corps Base in San Diego County was also nominated to be added to the priority list for cleanup because of potential ground-water and soil contamination from PCBs, pesticides, solvents and fuels. And El Toro Marine Corps Air Station in Irvine, plagued by hazardous waste, remained a proposed priority after being so designated last year.

The three Southern California bases were listed in the fourth annual Defense Environmental Restoration Program report to Congress, which describes the military’s progress in removing contamination and controlling hazardous wastes. Under a 1984 law, cleanup of sites in the program is handled through an interagency agreement between the Defense Department and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Overall, 14,401 sites at 1,579 Army, Navy, Air Force and Defense Logistics Agency bases nationwide were included in the 1989 fiscal year report. California had 1,713 sites at 112 bases, the highest of any state.

The military spent $467.8 million last year to investigate and clean up these contamination problems. Another $35.2 million went to reducing the generation of hazardous waste.

The Department of Defense progress report touted site inspections at 13,941 sites and said cleanup work had been completed at 287 locations and was under way at another 965.

At Edwards, the Air Force’s preeminent flight test center located outside Lancaster in northern Los Angeles County, 26 sites have been identified, including drum disposal areas, waste disposal pits, underground storage tanks, a leaking jet fuel pipeline, landfills, fire protection training areas and spill locations, the report said.

The problems are in areas used primarily for maintaining and refueling aircraft.

“Large amounts of fuel have been spilled and poor disposal practices have resulted in the release of organic solvents to the ground there,” the report said.

“Other sites in the area include an abandoned sanitary landfill containing pesticides and heavy metals, an area where electroplating wastes were dumped and the industrial waste pond, which contains heavy metals concentrations.”

Various toxic substances, including trichloroethylene--a chemical widely used in aerospace work that is a suspected human carcinogen under conditions of chronic exposure--are present in the shallower ground-water aquifer underlying the base, the report said. The base’s 13,800 employees obtain drinking water from wells within three miles.

The EPA said last July that there is no immediate threat to residents of the base from contamination of drinking water, but an agency spokesman said, “It is a potential health problem.”

In 1989, a ground-water treatment system was installed and 15 underground storage tanks were removed, the report added. Drums, contaminated soil, tanks and other contaminants were previously removed and ground-water will continue to be monitored in 1990. In recent years, $11.1 million has been spent to document and eradicate the problems, the Department of Defense reported.

“We’re already involved in that kind of cleanup program now and we have been for several years,” Edwards spokesman Dennis Shoffner said. “Our attitude here is to comply with the law not to balk at it.”