Finding the Real Waste at the McColl Dump Site

Re “Delay in McColl Cleanup Is Frustrating” (April 7): A few months ago, we watched Patriot missiles intercepting Scuds. A few days ago, we watched astronauts floating in space outside the shuttle. Yet, in more than a decade of studies and tests of McColl, no viable solution for its cleanup has been postulated. Is this selective technology?

Now the residents in the surrounding environs of McColl are asked to be patient for another 2 1/2 years, and American taxpayers are expected to dump more tax dollars into the assessment of this morass. The money expended to determine what to do about the goo is the true waste at McColl.

As a resident in proximity to this toxic waste site, I find the Environmental Protection Agency’s favored alternative, incineration, to be frightening. The EPA’s purported concern in monitoring minute air particulates and ground-water contamination does not jibe with their readiness to expose residents to the disaster that could occur after an incineration accident.

Initially, implementation of this scheme was proposed during fire season and our five-year drought. Has the EPA evaluated how rapidly the nearby dry brush, oil fields and upper-middle-class shake-roof homes would go up in flames in the worst-case scenario of this virtually unproven technology?

Only time will tell what long-term health effects will result from living near this political quagmire. And that delay could mean more taxpayers’ money committed to cleaning up lawsuits.

Superfund is a SuperFLOP. If missiles can be halted in midair and people can walk in space, then surely a reasonable, cost-effective solution to McColl can be identified.

While the taxpayers allow the government to soak up McColl’s sludge with our legal tender as their paper towels, California’s educational system is being flushed down the sewer.

As Americans file their tax returns this year, they should consider just exactly where that hard-earned money is going. It is padding the deep pockets of the powerful who pull the purse strings.

Waiting for the final McColl cleanup is more than frustrating. It is costing us a fortune. In the future, we may discover that the high price of our patience exceeded what we could afford.

R.G. HOWARD

Fullerton