HUNTINGTON BEACH : City Orders Cleanup of Old Landfill Site
After winding through a seven-year maze of bureaucracy, a cleanup of decades-old hazardous waste will begin within a month.
The owner of a 38-acre lot on the southwest corner at Hamilton Avenue and Magnolia Street must haul away the contaminants before building a planned housing development on the site.
The final bureaucratic hurdle was cleared last week when the city Planning Commission approved the cleanup procedure.
The area served as a landfill from 1935 through 1984, and until 1971 was a major dumping ground for liquid wastes from nearby oil fields. Many of the remaining deposits today are classified as hazardous materials, including chromic acid, sulfuric acid, aluminum slag, fuel oils, mercaptans and styrene.
During the landfill’s last 13 years of operation, only non-hazardous wastes were dumped there, city planning officials said.
The old oil-product wastes, however, could threaten the area’s ground water. Under the state Toxic Pits Cleanup Act of 1984, local and state authorities have ordered the landowner, the Lawndale-based NESI Investment Group, to rid the site of all hazardous contaminants.
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