Costs Mount in Tests for Toxic Contamination at Pitchess Jail : Castaic: L. A. County will pay $770,000 more to analyze soil and water believed tainted by confiscated drug-lab chemicals.

The continued testing of soil and water at an abandoned landfill on the grounds of the Pitchess jail near Castaic, believed to contain toxic chemicals from illicit drug labs seized in the 1970s, will cost financially strapped Los Angeles County another $770,000.

The county already has spent about $120,000 to pump and test well water near the site.

So far, the tests have turned up no toxic contamination, said Sharon Bunn, director of facilities planning for the Sheriff’s Department.

Money for the tests is coming from a 1986 general obligation bond fund, earmarked for Los Angeles County jails.

The bulk of the $96-million fund has been used to help pay for such projects as construction of new jails, including the North County Correctional Facility at Pitchess, Bunn said.

Traces of ethyl ether, a chemical used in the production of the drug PCP, first turned up in September, 1991, in wells dug to monitor ground water near the jail’s current garbage dump.

The Sheriff’s Department subsequently determined the chemical had leaked out of a five-acre canyon about two miles away from the nearest dormitory, where they believe everything from drug lab waste to animal remains once were buried.

Inmate and worker safety was the first concern, authorities said.

Tests were done of the jail’s drinking water wells, which turned up no toxic contamination, and an inmate running course near the site was rerouted away from the fenced-off canyon.

The second phase, which was approved Tuesday, will include deep soil and water testing and initial cleanup plans, according to a report submitted to supervisors by the Sheriff’s Department.

This phase will not include any of the actual cleanup, however, which officials have said could range from the removal of a small amount of contaminated soil to the extensive pumping of tainted water.

Last year, county officials said that they hoped to have an estimate of the full cost of cleaning up the site at the end of the first water-testing phase.

But Bunn said Tuesday that because no additional contamination was discovered, they now believe they will not have an estimate on overall costs until the second phase is complete.

“We really don’t know what we’re going to be faced with,” she said. “Since it’s buried, we still don’t know what’s there.”