Oxnard Dunes Suit Reveals Navy’s Past Toxic Dumping : Environment: Lawyers say documents show that waste disposal in the area was common. Officials say there is no health risk.

The Navy has dumped sulfuric acid, PCBs, radioactive crushed rock, solvents and other hazardous chemicals at the Port Hueneme Naval Construction Battalion Center, according to a court document recently made public.

However, Navy officials said the chemical dumpings do not pose a health threat to personnel on the base. The dumpings were disclosed by lawyers in a complex lawsuit involving an oil waste dump buried beneath an Oxnard subdivision.

Lawyers for the former owners of the land where the subdivision is located introduced the information on Navy activities to show that chemical dumping was not uncommon on the Oxnard beaches and adjacent areas in past years.

The 175 residents of the Oxnard Dunes neighborhood filed a $3.5-million lawsuit in 1987, contending that developers, former landowners and the city are liable for failing to disclose the existence of the oil waste dump under the 100-lot subdivision.

To buttress the claim that the beachfront area was used for various military, industrial and agricultural activities, lawyers last month also released military maps that showed that the Navy once trained with tear gas on a site now occupied by a shopping center on Harbor Boulevard in a nearby neighborhood called Oxnard Shores.

Included in the court document was information on several oil waste dumps opened in the 1950s and used through the 1980s on beachfront lands around the Dunes neighborhood.

Evidence of toxic waste disposal at military bases and other federal facilities throughout the country has been disclosed by federal officials. However, the legal document submitted in Ventura County Superior Court two weeks ago is the first public evidence of hazardous material dumping on military bases in this county.

Connie L. Taylor, a spokeswoman for the naval base, said the toxic waste buried on the base poses “no considerable threat to human health and safety.”

She said the chemical dumping was documented in a 1985 military report designed to assess environmental problems on the base. The Navy is continuing to study the matter to determine how much cleanup is needed, she said.

Glen M. Reiser, an attorney for the McGrath family--a pioneering farm family that owned huge expanses of land in the Oxnard beach area--said the land-use information was brought into the case to show that chemical dumping was common practice in the area in past years.

Reiser said he can clear the McGraths of liability in the suit if he can prove that the oil waste dump buried beneath the Dunes subdivision was an appropriate use for the property.

On Monday, a Ventura County Superior Court judge will consider Reiser’s argument and a motion to release the McGraths from the suit.

Paul Dolan, the lead plaintiff in the Dunes suit, called the McGrath defense tactic “hogwash.”

“They are trying to take the heat off themselves as former landowners,” Dolan said. “They are saying we have no responsibility or liability.”

The document filed with the court says that PCBs, formaldehyde and battery acid are buried within the 1,615-acre naval base. Also dumped on the base were thousands of gallons of hydraulic fluid, 40,000 gallons of sulfuric acid, 10,000 gallons of thinner and solvent and 11,800 cubic yards of crushed radioactive rock, according to the 70-page document.

The Port Hueneme base is home to about 11,300 military and civilian personnel, Navy officials said.

However, the court document goes on to say that most of the toxic waste buried there has either evaporated or remained in the soil without migrating through the ground water to other areas.

The document says the Navy installed wells to monitor any spread of radioactivity from the buried materials.

Thousands of gallons of thinner, paint sludge and PCBs probably did not seep into underground aquifers because of their propensity to “bind tightly to soil,” the document says.

The court document also discusses historic land use near the Oxnard Dunes neighborhood.

Several companies had obtained county permits to use the beachfront area to bury oil-field waste during the late 1950s through early 1980s, according to the document. During those years, millions of barrels of mud and waste from nearby oil drilling operations were deposited in the area, the document says.

Last year, state health officials completed a five-year study, concluding that the oil waste buried under the Oxnard Dunes subdivision does not pose a health hazard to residents. The suit’s plaintiffs dispute the findings, saying state health officials have minimized the health danger because of political pressure from local landowners, developers and politicians.