Decontamination Cost Settlement Deadline Set

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has set an end-of-month deadline for owners of 10 San Fernando Valley industrial and landfill sites to make settlement offers or face a federal lawsuit to recover $16.8 million in ground-water decontamination costs under the Superfund toxic cleanup program.

Lawyers for the targeted firms--which the EPA claims are legally responsible for the pollution--said they are weighing their options following warnings that a lawsuit is imminent against those refusing to contribute cleanup funds.

The companies generally argue that they are not liable, but some said they may offer nominal settlement funds to avoid a costly legal defense.

“For those who are not interested in settling, we are going to file a lawsuit against them,” said Thomas P. Mintz, EPA assistant regional counsel in San Francisco.

The $16.8 million sought by the EPA includes nearly $5.6 million spent to design, build and run a ground-water treatment plant that has been operating about four years in the 11800 block of Vose Street in North Hollywood.

The other $11.2 million is for past costs of ground-water investigations in North Hollywood and elsewhere in the Valley--which has been designated for Superfund cleanup due to lake-size plumes of chemically tainted water that have invaded clusters of municipal water supply wells.

To cope with the problem, Los Angeles, Burbank and Glendale have had to reduce use of ground water and buy more expensive replacement supplies from the Metropolitan Water District.

The culprits are traces of cleaning solvents--particularly trichloroethylene and perchloroethylene--that have been widely used for dry cleaning and metal degreasing and that are thought to have been spilled or leaked by many companies in decades past.

The EPA last spring demanded cleanup funds from owners and operators of six industrial sites in North Hollywood, Sun Valley and Burbank. It more recently sent dunning notices to Waste Management Inc., operator of the Bradley Landfill & Recycling Center in Sun Valley, and to owners of three inactive landfill sites in Sun Valley.

The Superfund law allows the EPA to recoup cleanup expenses from polluters and operators of sites polluted by previous owners. Even so, several companies contend that their sites did not contribute to ground-water contamination.

The operators of California Car Hikers Service, an auto salvage business that took over the former Tuxford Landfill, were “shocked to all of a sudden get a notice from the federal government that they want an exorbitant amount of money and they want it ASAP,” said Fred Szkolnik, a lawyer for the firm.

He said he does not expect the operators to make an offer.

Pick Your Part Auto Wrecking, another salvage business that recently took over the former Gregg Pit dump in the 9300 block of Glen Oaks Boulevard, is also blameless, said its lawyer, Richard Dongell.

“Unfortunately, before an innocent party can be dropped from a Superfund action, it must spend exorbitant amounts of money” in legal fees, Dongell said. To buy peace, Pick Your Part might offer to “pay a nominal amount.”

Lynn Walker, senior environmental counsel for Waste Management, the world’s largest waste disposal firm, said the company believes that Bradley Landfill did not pollute ground water under Waste Management or prior owners. But she said the company plans next week to join with two other firms in making a small settlement offer.

She said the company would take this “realistic approach . . . rather than waste an incredible amount of money in legal fees to prove our innocence. . . .”

Although aware of the companies’ contentions, Mintz said: “We have our differences of opinion on how to read the data.”

The small treatment plant in North Hollywood is a limited phase of a wider ground-water cleanup plan. Construction has begun in Burbank of a larger treatment system expected to cost more than $100 million and restore Burbank’s ground-water supplies. Under a consent agreement reached with the EPA, Lockheed Corp. will fund and perform most of the work.

In Glendale, the EPA has chosen a treatment system estimated to cost up to $60 million to build and operate. About 50 Burbank and Glendale-area companies have been told that they may be held responsible for the costs.