EPA Ruling May Add Burbank to List of Corporate Polluters

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Wednesday declared the city of Burbank “potentially responsible” for contamination of its ground water, meaning the city could be asked to join Lockheed Aeronautical Systems Co. and other corporate polluters in financing the federal Superfund cleanup of municipal well water supplies.

However, the basis for the action was not explained. Burbank officials, who announced the decision late Wednesday, said they were not sure what prompted it. “We’re not happy about it. We were surprised about it,” said Carolyn Barnes, Burbank’s assistant city attorney.

EPA officials involved in the decision could not be reached for comment.

“All I can do is confirm that they were named . . . I don’t know any more than that,” said Virginia Donohue, a spokeswoman in the EPA’s San Francisco regional office.

The action means the EPA could demand that the city help pay to clean up the chemical contamination that has shut down municipal wells. The cleanup is estimated to cost $77 million over 20 years.

The city is the 32nd party to be named “potentially responsible” for pollution of ground water by the chemical solvents perchloroethylene (PCE) and trichloroethylene (TCE), both thought to increase the risk of cancer if consumed in drinking water over many years.

Lockheed and 30 other Burbank-area firms were asked last year to provide cleanup funds. All but a handful of the companies denied responsibility for the pollution and refused to contribute, inviting the EPA to sue them under the federal Superfund law. That law allows the agency to extract cleanup costs and damages from firms responsible for toxic pollution.

However, Lockheed announced it would put up $52 million and several other firms said they might contribute to the effort to avoid legal action by the EPA. For more than a year, the EPA has been negotiating privately with Lockheed and the others, but no cleanup agreement has been reached.

The EPA wants the responsible parties to extract and treat 12,000 gallons of ground water per day and deliver it for use by Burbank residents.

Under the Superfund law, Burbank can be named “potentially responsible” merely by virtue of owning the contaminated site--in this case polluted city wells. Barnes said this alone might be the basis for the EPA action--or it might be the fact that the city Public Service Department has stored and used solvents of the type found in the ground water.

According to Barnes, there are no indications the city spilled or leaked the chemicals.

She speculated that the EPA action was a tactic to speed discussions between Lockheed and the city over who will pay for water disinfection and other operating costs. The city does not want any cleanup agreement to increase its current water costs.