Oxnard Sues Over Cleanup of Sewage Plant Site

The city of Oxnard has filed a federal lawsuit against the former owners of the site of its sewage treatment plant, claiming that they failed to warn the city that the land was contaminated with toxic material.

The suit was filed in U. S. District Court in Los Angeles against the owners of a now-defunct company, Pacific Recycling Enterprises, which ran an automobile junkyard on the site of the sewage facility.

The junkyard owners disclosed “some but not all of the contamination at the site” to city engineers when Oxnard bought the 7.76-acre property in 1986 for $1.9 million, the suit charges.

On Thursday, Oxnard city officials toured a partly completed expansion of the treatment plant on the site at 5925 Perkins Road.

The plant’s concrete settlement tanks were built atop the site, which was contaminated with lead, oil, cadmium, copper and zinc until the city spent one month and $1.5 million to clean it up, said Ben Wong, assistant public works director.

In December, 1988, construction engineers were digging up ground for the expansion when they discovered car parts and contaminants in the soil, said Stuart Larman, resident engineer for the project.

“It was basically contaminated by battery acid and lead in the batteries and leaky gas tanks and oil,” Larman said. “The extra work did not impact the ongoing project that was happening at the same time. Luckily, we were able to get the work done. We had a very cooperative contractor.”

The city hired cleanup contractor Paul Laurence to remove 7,200 tons of contaminated soil from the site and truck it to a toxic-waste disposal dump run by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in Casmalia, he said.

The city’s lawsuit, filed April 9, also accuses Pacific Recycling Enterprises, an earlier site occupant called Bay City Steel and their owners of negligence.

The owners named are Herman and Gertrude Istrin, Genevieve and Clarence Haack, Leslie and Lucille Fine, and Vicky and Jack Del Rey.

Los Angeles attorney Matthew L. Grode, whose firm represents all the owners but the Del Reys, said Thursday that his firm will file a response to the suit within the next few weeks. He said ownership of Pacific Recycling is in dispute but declined to comment further.

The other owners have not been served with the suit, said Byron J. Lawler, who is representing Oxnard.

The suit asks the court to order Pacific Recycling’s owners to reimburse Oxnard the $1.5 million already spent on cleanup and any future cleanup costs for the site.