Cleanup Finished at Toxic Waste Site

State toxic waste disposal workers signaled an “all-clear” Thursday at the former Chatham Brothers Barrel Yard in rural Escondido, where 11,000 tons of contaminated soil have been removed to a toxic waste dump.

“The last truckload rolled out of here Wednesday afternoon,” Allan Hirsch, spokesman for the state Department of Health Services, reported. The soil containing petroleum residues, PCBs, heavy metals and other dangerous chemicals were taken to a federally approved toxic waste dump 321 miles to the north in Kettleman City.

Hirsch said the cleanup cost $2.9 million and was accomplished in half the time expected and without any incident that would have triggered an air-horn alarm ordering workers to evacuate the site and neighbors to close their windows and remain inside.

For the next two weeks or so, activity will continue on the former petroleum recycling yard, which operated at the site near Bernardo Avenue and Gamble Lane until 1980. Soil samplings will be taken to determine if the remaining earth is free of contaminants, Hirsch said, and trucks will be bringing in clean dirt to fill the excavations.

When results of the soil sampling are known in about two weeks, “we will know better where we are going. At the present time, it is very difficult to predict what additional remedial work must be done,” Hirsch said.

State toxic waste control officials have been studying the site and planning the cleanup for more than eight years, but cleanup did not get into high gear until last fall when monitoring wells showed that ground water from the site had migrated into a neighboring residential area, sparking concern that the buried toxics might seep into Felicita Creek and eventually into Lake Hodges. Lake Hodges is a San Diego city reservoir that serves as a water supply for residents of Rancho Santa Fe and some north coastal communities.

Removal began March 13 and had been expected to take at least six weeks. Despite the fact that more contaminated material was found than had been estimated, the job was accomplished three weeks early, Hirsch said.

State toxic waste officials had sped the removal in order to meet a May 8 deadline, after which a federal mandate requires that toxics cannot be dumped untreated into approved landfills.

More monitoring wells will be drilled in the southwestern Escondido residential neighborhood to check on the ground-water contamination, Hirsch said, “but the main threat is removed” with removal of the contaminated soil where toxic materials had been dumped and buried for 40 years while the plant was operating.

Before the property can be used for any purpose such as housing or agriculture, a final cleanup must be done to remove any remaining contaminants from the ground water, Hirsch said.