Toxic Level Is Low at Proposed CSU Site : Education: Tests uncover far less contamination than feared, easing way for state to condemn property to build campus.

Tests for toxic materials on land chosen for a public university in Ventura County have uncovered far less contamination than officials had feared, easing the way for the state to condemn the property.

California State University officials said last week that removing the toxic substances from abandoned oil fields and farm operations will cost substantially less than the $1-million price tag they believed the cleanup would carry.

Meanwhile, the first phase of a $10.3-million county project to widen roads near the proposed campus west of Camarillo is expected to win funding approval as early as Friday.

And county public works officials say they may be able to divert funds to begin work right away on a $6.2-million canal to prevent winter flooding. As officials report progress on the once-controversial new campus, enrollment at the existing satellite campus of Cal State Northridge in west Ventura is climbing again after a budget crunch forced an earlier moratorium on growth.

“I am more optimistic now than I have been in three years,” said Director Joyce M. Kennedy of the Ventura campus. She said the satellite campus, which now holds upper-division classes in rented office space, should steadily grow until the turn of the century, when the new campus is expected to open.

“We are again trying to increase our enrollment because Ventura County has been underserved for too long,” she said.

The often contentious search for an acceptable site for a full four-year campus began in 1984 and culminated in 1991 with the selection of a lemon grove north of the Ventura Freeway between Camarillo and Oxnard.

Since then, the Cal State system has been negotiating to buy the property. The university and one of the owners, Sakioka Farms, have agreed on an undisclosed price for purchase of 70 acres. But Mohseni Ranches, which owns the remaining 190 acres, has so far refused to sell and may force a years-long condemnation in court.

The Mohseni family forced Cal State to obtain a court order last year before scientists could take soil samples to test for contamination from farming and oil field operations.

Results of those tests last week showed evidence of pesticides and oil wastes in some areas, but only at surface levels and in minor quantities, said David Leveille, director of institutional relations for Cal State.

“It’s good news,” Leveille said. “We feel much more confident at this point. If the tests had uncovered major contamination, it could have been a deal breaker.”

Even with the positive turn of events, California voters must pass a bond issue before Cal State can construct buildings.

“For the actual development of the campus, there’s nothing in the till,” Leveille said. Nevertheless, he said he is optimistic that students will be attending classes at the new campus by the turn of the century.

Before that, roads must be improved and a flood-control channel constructed. If federal transportation money for the first phase of work is approved at the Ventura County Transportation Commission on Friday, the county can begin to widen Santa Clara Avenue to four lanes from Oxnard city limits to Los Angeles Avenue.

The plan also includes widening the north half of Central Avenue from the Ventura Freeway to Santa Clara Avenue, said Butch Britt, deputy director of public works for transportation. Central Avenue is now a narrow two-lane road with irrigation ditches on both sides of the street, he said.

Britt said the county hopes to have the roads improved by the year 2000. “We’re putting it ahead of other projects as one of our top priorities because of the need to support the college,” he said.

The city of Oxnard is planning a companion project that will widen Rice Avenue and improve the intersection with Rice and the Ventura Freeway, Britt said.

The flood-control channel, which will stretch diagonally more than a mile across the property, will prevent winter rains from turning the grounds into a seasonal swamp.

Hugh Clabaugh, project engineer for the county flood-control district, said funding for the Santa Clara canal would eventually come from the U.S. Soil Conservation Service. But to begin work now while federal funds are tight, the district may divert funding from another nearby flood-control project, Clabaugh said.

Clabaugh said the county does not have a projected completion date because of funding problems, but the district is now in the process of acquiring the land.

The new campus, which would accommodate up to about 22,000 full- and part-time students, is desperately needed in the county, students at the satellite campus said last week.

Tony Thompson, 22, a bartender at Alexander’s in Ventura, is enrolled for fall classes at the Ventura campus but will have to supplement his curriculum with classes at the Northridge campus next year.

“Everybody we know has to go elsewhere to go to college,” he said.

Debbie Berger, who works at the Target store in Ventura, agreed. “It’s too much to travel and and have a job too,” she said.

Linda McTigue, a Ventura substitute teacher who is taking classes at the campus to earn her teaching credential, said she has three children away at college now, each with boarding costs of about $6,000 per year.

“It’s too expensive to send kids away to college,” she said. “And I still have one kid coming. We need a local college.”