ANAHEIM : Suit Says City Wasn’t Told of Toxic Waste

The city filed an $800,000 lawsuit this week against Southern California Gas Co. and Union Pacific Railroad, claiming, in part, that it wasn’t informed that property bought for a redevelopment project was contaminated with hazardous materials.

The city claims it spent $830,000 in cleanup and attorney fees after discovering petroleum byproducts buried under two parcels near the intersection of Pauline and Cypress streets.

Anaheim purchased the parcels from Union Pacific in 1989 and 1990 as part of its downtown redevelopment effort, according to documents filed in Orange County Superior Court. The property is now the site of residential development.

One of several predecessor companies to Southern California Gas sold the property to the railroad in 1917 after using it for 15 years as a gas production and distribution facility, gas company officials said.

The lawsuit claims that the railroad failed to inform Anaheim the land is contaminated and that the gas company refused to help pay the cost of removing the hazardous materials.

“This is not stuff that would make you glow in the dark, but it does qualify as hazardous material,” said Robert ZurSchmiede, property services manager of the Anaheim Redevelopment Agency. The city removed all the material before the homes were built.

Southern California Gas spokesman Dick Friend had no comment on the suit but said that around the turn of the century, each town had its own gas company. These companies were eventually purchased by Southern California Gas.

These “mom-and-pop” gas companies produced the gas by heating petroleum, which left behind a sludge. The companies sold much of the sludge to cities for street paving, but what they didn’t sell was dumped into the ground, Friend said.

According to the suit, when the city began grading at the site of the housing project, “a dark, ash-like soil layer was uncovered approximately two feet below the surface,” which was found to be petroleum byproducts. Upon further digging, “an underground concrete vault with the capacity of 30,000 gallons was also discovered,” the documents say.

The city says it spent $804,606 to remove the waste and $26,821 in attorney fees in attempting to get the companies to reimburse its costs.