Park Site Waits for Gasoline Cleanup : Oxnard: The city and a developer who gave up the land disagree on who has responsibility for the contamination.

A park site near the River Ridge Golf Course in Oxnard has remained vacant and littered with trash and broken bottles because city officials and the developer that donated the land are in a dispute over who is responsible for gasoline contamination on the lot.

Neighborhood residents who were promised in 1981 that the city would develop a park on the land are upset.

Development of a three-acre park on Bevra Avenue and Spyglass Terrace was halted last August after city workers discovered that the soil was contaminated with gasoline that leaked from an underground tank.

County health officials said the extent of the contamination has not yet been adequately determined. But they said preliminary studies showed there was a danger that the gasoline could contaminate underground drinking water.

The studies indicated that the soil has been contaminated with abnormally high levels of lead and xylene, two carcinogenics associated with gasoline, county officials said.

The dusty, vacant lot, covered with dead shrubs, broken bottles and gopher holes, was set aside for a park under a 1981 development agreement between Strathmore Homes of Oxnard and the city. Under the agreement, Strathmore gave the city the three acres in exchange for approval to build about 460 houses around the city-owned River Ridge Golf Course.

The city has set aside money to develop the park, but refuses to accept a deed for the land until Strathmore takes responsibility for the contamination.

Strathmore representatives say the agreement required the company to donate the land and the contamination problem is now the city’s.

“I don’t feel that we are responsible for anything,” said Richard McNish, owner of Strathmore Homes.

Ted Hetherington, chairman of the Windsor North Neighborhood Council, said he is angry about not having a park in the area.

He said he was recently told by a city official that the park development is being delayed because of “environmental things.”

“My point of concern is that this neighborhood has been put on the back burner for over 25 years for a park,” Hetherington said.

The park site was formerly a farm house that included a gasoline pump and an underground tank, Parks and Recreation Director Gary Davis said. Over the years, the tank leaked gasoline into the soil, he said.

“It’s not a major contamination,” Davis said. “It’s not like an oil sump . . . but there are petroleum products in the soil.”

Assistant City Manager John Tooker said he has met with McNish to find a resolution to the dispute. However, he acknowledged that the matter was not his top priority because the city is financially strapped and does not have the funds to maintain the park even after it is developed.

“We have not been pushing the issue with any great fervor,” he said.

Tooker said he and McNish are focusing on two questions. First, who is responsible for the contamination? And second, does the problem require an expensive soil cleanup project or a simple soil monitoring program to keep tabs on the spread of the contamination?

Before those questions can be answered the extent of the contamination must be determined, said Doug Beach, manager of the county Environmental Health Department’s Underground Tanks Program.

“We don’t have enough information to determine how much danger there is,” he said.

Beach said Strathmore had conducted preliminary studies on the site. But despite repeated requests, Strathmore has declined to conduct more thorough studies to evaluate the extent of the contamination, Beach said.

The preliminary studies indicated that the gasoline was not on the surface and was not a danger to residents, he said.

The tests showed that some gasoline had seeped into a shallow aquifer that does not produce drinking water, Beach said.

However, Beach warned that the gasoline could eventually seep down and contaminate a deeper aquifer that provides drinking water to the area.

“As far as we are concerned, the developer is responsible,” he said, adding that the county does not have the funds to conduct the necessary soil studies.

McNish said he was required by state law to donate to the city an additional 68 acres of land, which the city used as part of the River Ridge Golf Course.

While he acknowledged that the golf course was no substitute for a public park, McNish pointed out that residents of his development have access to swimming pools and spas.

“Why do people in the community of River Ridge need a park anyway?” he asked.