Hearing on Plans, Sites for City Water Cleanup : Environment: All four proposed locations are in the Grand Central industrial area. The EPA will release the names of companies responsible for paying for the work.

Officials of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will conduct a public hearing today on six proposals to clean up contaminated ground water in Glendale at four potential sites for the operation.

The agency favors a $36.4-million plan that would use air-stripping towers to purge industrial solvents from the water. The system would be designed to clean 3,000 gallons of water per minute for a period of 12 years, according to an EPA report.

All four sites under consideration are in the Grand Central industrial area near Grandview Avenue, where five of the city’s wells were shut down after studies in 1980 found the water supply was contaminated.

Two sites owned by the city of Glendale are north of Grandview along San Fernando Road. Two others, one owned by Glendale and the other by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, are at Flower Street and the Los Angeles River, said Donald R. Froelich, city water services administrator.

The hearing is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. at the Glendale Central Library, 222 E. Harvard St. Written comments, postmarked by Aug. 6, may be sent to Claire Trombadore, project manager at EPA regional headquarters, 75 Hawthorne St. (H-6-4), San Francisco, 94105-3901.

The agency proposes to drill a series of shallow wells that would draw out the most-contaminated water. A series of short towers, storage tanks and an office-laboratory would be built at the selected treatment site. Once cleansed, the water would be blended with supplies from the Metropolitan Water District for distribution throughout the city’s system or re-injected into the ground, Froelich said.

The proposal is one of six alternatives suggested in an extensive report by James M. Montgomery Inc., a Walnut Creek consultant. Other proposals called for different methods of cleansing pollutants and distributing treated water.

Copies of the report are available for review at city libraries in Glendale and Burbank, Cal State Northridge, UCLA’s University Research Library and at the headquarters of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power.

Selection of a site is expected to take about a year and will include environmental studies, public hearings and approval by the city of Glendale, as well as other agencies.

Next month, EPA officials are expected to release the names of companies that will be held responsible for the cost of the cleanup. The contamination is believed to have occurred over the 50 years from the improper storage and disposal of chemical solvents used in dry cleaning and manufacturing.

Studies have found that high concentrations of cancer-causing toxins have seeped into the ground water supply throughout a large area of the east San Fernando Valley and Glendale, and are migrating south.

The area was designated in 1986 for cleanup under the federal Superfund program, which identifies the nation’s worst toxic sites. A North Hollywood treatment plant has been in operation since March, 1989, and a second ground water extraction and treatment plant is being built in Burbank, said Paula Bruin, EPA spokeswoman.

Plans to clean up additional ground water pollution in south Glendale are expected to be discussed at another hearing later this year.