Navy Will Pay $1 Million in Dump Cleanup

The U.S. Navy has agreed to pay more than $1 million to help finance the cleanup of lingering contamination at a Monterey Park landfill--one of the nation’s worst hazardous-waste sites.

The settlement on behalf of the Long Beach Naval Facility, which sent 635,000 gallons of industrial waste to the dump--will absolve the Navy from liability in the first stage of the cleanup, federal environmental officials announced Tuesday in San Francisco.

“They did the right thing,” said Katherine Shine, an Environmental Protection Agency lawyer who helped negotiate the settlement. She said the Navy was treated the same as the polluters.

Navy spokeswoman Jeanne Light said: “We are happy to have this portion of the liability resolved.” Although it is a major settlement in the case, the amount represents a fraction of the $500 million to $800 million estimated to be needed to remedy the problem in coming decades.

At the 190-acre former dump, run by Operating Industries Inc. until it was shut down in 1984, about 4,000 companies may have dumped waste, including 300 million gallons of hazardous liquids.

The landfill was designated a federal Superfund site in 1986. State and federal officials have pointed to the Monterey Park cleanup efforts and the campaign to recoup the costs as a major success story of the Superfund program, criticized nationally as anything but a success.

In three earlier settlements involving the site beside the Pomona Freeway, federal officials have managed to extract close to $200 million from polluting companies. Amounts contributed so far have ranged from $15,000 from the Coca-Cola Co. to $5.9 million from Atlantic Richfield Co.

Times Mirror Co., parent firm of the Los Angeles Times, was among the first group of companies to agree to settlements and contributed more than $172,000.

None of the settlements so far absolve the Navy and others who dumped at the site from having to pay for later stages of the cleanup.

In a novel approach to toxics litigation, in 1990 a consortium of 65 major corporations sought to spread the blame--and the cleanup costs--onto 29 Los Angeles County cities, many of them in the San Gabriel Valley.

The companies, a Who’s Who of corporate America, sued the cities and Los Angeles County and the state Department of Transportation as well, saying they contributed to the problem by taking trash that contained hazardous materials to the dump.

Eventually, five of the cities--Artesia, Baldwin Park, Industry, Santa Fe Springs and Walnut--were dropped from the suit.

In the last six months 10 cities--Bell Gardens, Beverly Hills, El Monte, Huntington Park, La Puente, Norwalk, Paramount, San Marino, Sierra Madre and South El Monte--have agreed to settle the case for a total of about $2 million.

Although officials in those communities are struggling with how to pay for the settlement and legal fees as well, some officials have said they believe that to settle was less expensive than pursuing the court fight.

El Monte Deputy City Atty. Marvin Cichy said each of the 10 cities will save an average of several million dollars by settling out of court.

“I feel sorry for the cities that didn’t get out,” Cichy said, adding that the outcome could be much worse for them.

El Monte agreed to pay $600,000, and its legal fees ran $400,000.

Fourteen cities, along with the county and Caltrans, are continuing their fight: Alhambra, Bell, Commerce, Compton, Cudahy, Lynwood, Maywood, Montebello, Monterey Park, Rosemead, San Gabriel, South Gate, South Pasadena and Temple City.

South Pasadena City Manager Kenneth C. Farfsing said the $1.3 million the companies have asked the city to pay would do serious harm to its already stressed finances. “That’s quite a bit of money for a city our size,” he said. “It’s 13% of our annual budget.”

The next stage of the trial is expected to begin by summer.