State to Tell Signal Hill to Test for Pollution : Environment: The Water Quality Control Board will order installation of wells to monitor contamination beneath Auto Center.

Water quality officials said this week that they plan to order Signal Hill to install wells to monitor the quality of water beneath the city’s Auto Center project, following a report that oil contamination “poses a significant threat to ground water.”

Jim Ross, a senior engineer with the state Regional Water Quality Control Board, said he will order installation of the wells at the 35-acre Auto Center, which is being built at Cherry Avenue and Spring Street.

Although drinking water deposits are not immediately threatened by the pollution, water officials have said for months that they need the wells to track the source and spread of gasoline, diesel fuel and more volatile compounds. Health officials are concerned that the pollutants--mostly oil from the city’s past as an oil boom town--could eventually seep into deep aquifers that Signal Hill and surrounding cities pump for drinking water.

City officials could not be reached for comment, but they have previously said that investigating ground water contamination would be of little value. They said installation of the wells would be expensive and that water officials already are aware that underground deposits known as the Gage Aquifer are heavily polluted.

The water board had previously requested, but did not order, more information on contamination beneath the Auto Center, which is designed to include six dealerships and to produce $2 million a year in sales taxes for the tiny city.

Ross said he expected the city to conduct such water monitoring without being ordered to do so.

“I think they have been out of touch with the standard of the industry,” Ross said. “Given what the data is here, we would have reasonably expected a ground water investigation.”

The presence of deep underground contamination was confirmed by the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services, which last week reported finding the “significant” ground water threat and asked the water board to assume review of the cleanup of the Auto Center properties.

A county health official asked for the further study of ground water after reviewing four years of reports summarizing Signal Hill’s efforts to clean up contamination left by oil-related businesses.

The county summary showed that such volatile compounds as benzene were found up to 135 feet underground, at the same depth as the Gage Aquifer.

The call to test ground water is just the latest phase in the four-year assessment and cleanup of contamination at the Auto Center site.

Initial estimates for the work were less than $1 million, but costs have climbed to more than $6 million. Meanwhile, auto dealers have been frustrated by construction delays.

M.F. Salta Co. was scheduled to move two dealerships in August from Long Beach to eight acres at the corner of Cherry Avenue and 28th Street in Signal Hill. But extensive contamination of the site has delayed the move for Salta, a key Auto Center tenant.

The city is negotiating with Salta in a bid to give the dealer the land sooner than the current December deadline. The City Council is expected to discuss the matter later this month.