City OKs More Funds to Clean Polluted Drain : Environment: The council acts to keep contaminated water from flowing into the ocean and affecting marine life.

A hose from a pumper truck snakes into the storm drain near 8th Street, sucking out water contaminated with fuel so it will not flow into Long Beach Harbor.

A couple of hundred yards away, a compressor forces air into the drain to keep the fumes from reaching explosive levels.

The contaminated storm drain in an industrial area near 8th Street, west of Pico Avenue, has been the center of a cleanup effort since July. On Tuesday, the City Council approved spending about $540,000 to take care of the most pressing danger:that the contaminated water would flow into the ocean and threaten marine life.

A consultant, Pacific Environmental Management Corp., has been doing the work under a $125,000-a-year contract with the city. But the cost of purging the storm drain, which should be complete in a couple of weeks, has exceeded the contract amount.

The drain is only part of the problem. The soil and ground water around the storm drain also are contaminated, and state law requires that the fuel be removed. Officials declined to estimate how much that cleanup will cost, but the cost will be added to the amount the council approved Tuesday.

The contamination was detected in July by a worker who smelled the fuel during a routine inspection of a municipal pump station on 8th Street. The station takes water from the storm drain and pumps it up a nearby hill so it can flow down to the ocean.

Inspection and testing indicated that contaminated water was leaking through seams into the storm drain and that fumes were reaching potentially explosive levels in the drain, said Dick Smith, the city’s hazardous waste operations officer.

Fortunately, city officials said, the contamination is more than half a mile from homes and several miles downstream from where the city draws drinking water from the ground.

The results from 12 soil and water samples indicate that the polluted area is about 100 feet long and 50 to 100 feet wide, said Leland R. Hill, a city environmental specialist. So far, high levels of fuel have been found 15 feet below ground, he said.

“It’s localized,” Hill said. “It may be migrating some, but it’s not migrating very far.” More tests will be done to identify the boundaries of the contamination, which officials say could be gasoline, diesel or jet fuel, or a combination of the three.

Some toxic substances associated with fuel, including cancer-causing benzene, have been detected, Hill said.

The testing will also help city officials identify who is responsible for the contamination.

The contamination could have come from a number of sources, including nearby refineries and fuel storage tanks, or leaks in fuel pipelines that run through the area, Hill said.

City officials said they will seek to recover the cleanup costs if they can determine who is responsible.

Pacific Environmental Management has removed about 250,000 gallons of tainted water from the storm drain, spokesman Michael Daul said. About 150 tons of contaminated soil also were removed from the storm drain.

The tainted water and soil have been stored temporarily in tanks and dumpsters near the pump station. They will be hauled to petroleum recyclers, where the fuel will be separated for reuse, Daul said.