Countywide : Supervisors to Vote on Testing Contract

Ventura County is likely to receive a $1.2-million contract to continue testing underground gasoline tanks and monitoring any needed cleanup, according to county officials.

The state contract would continue a program begun in 1988. It would pay for 10 staff members, said Janis Bassett, supervising accountant at the county’s Resource Management Agency.

County supervisors are to decide today whether to agree to a three-month extension of the contract, which expires Saturday.

The county has earned the renewal by being quick and effective in heading off potentially cancer-causing leaks of gasoline into ground water, said Hank Yacoub, director of the state water-quality toxics program in Los Angeles.

The county has approved cleanup at 88 sites and is working on cleanup plans at another 440, county officials said.

Like the rest of the state, however, Ventura County missed 1985, 1986 and 1987 deadlines for issuing permits to all operators of underground tanks.

The permits require operators to monitor existing tanks for leaks or replace them with leakproof tanks. All or nearly all underground-tank operators in Ventura County now have permits, Yacoub said.

Tanks in the city of Ventura are not covered by the county effort. The city applied for a contract but was rejected because it has few tanks, said Brian Clark, who heads the city’s locally funded program.