FULLERTON : McColl Waste Can Be Removed--EPA

The federal Environmental Protection Agency said this week that preliminary results of its trial excavations at the McColl toxic waste dump in June and July indicate that toxic waste can be removed from the site without “significant impact to the community.”

The test drilling, which took place from June 7 to July 18 in a special domed enclosure, was conducted on one of the 12 sumps at the site.

According to the agency, the primary objective of the trial excavation was to determine whether noxious emissions could be controlled and see what methods would be successful in removing the waste.

Bill Duchie, spokesman for the McColl Site Group made up of Atlantic Richfield, Phillips Petroleum, Shell Oil, Texaco Refining & Marketing and Union Oil, said he believes that the agency is too optimistic about the preliminary results of the drilling test.

“This preliminary report doesn’t really say anything to indicate that they’re able to solve the problems of the safe waste removal at the site,” Duchie said.

Duchie said the report may raise the hopes of the community only to dash them in the long run.

“I’d like to give (EPA) the benefit of the doubt and wait for the final report,” he said. “But I believe the final report will not be as optimistic as this one.”

EPA spokeswoman Lois Grunwald called the test drilling a success.

“The reason for the test dig was to find out what problems we would be facing,” she said. “We feel the problems that came up can be dealt with by engineering controls.”

The dump site was created in the 1940s when oil companies producing aviation fuel for World War II deposited materials in 12 sumps operated by Eli McColl in then-rural Fullerton. Now the dump site, under a vacant field and part of a golf course at Los Coyotes Country Club, is bordered on three sides by upper-middle-class homes.

State health officials have determined that the soil contains sulfuric acid, benzene and arsenic, and that fumes from the site contain sulfur dioxide, causing nearby residents to suffer from headaches, nausea and respiratory problems. Current plans to clean up the site appear to be stalled because of legal differences between the EPA and the McColl Site Group, and the EPA has said that once the cleanup begins it could take as long as seven years to complete.

The EPA said a final report on the excavation will be available in November. The agency will answer questions about the final report on Nov. 14 at 7:30 p.m. in the music room of Parks Junior High School, 1710 Rosecrans Ave.