RINCON : Contaminated Water Found Near Oil Field

The company that spilled 84,000 gallons of heavy crude oil into McGrath Lake near Oxnard late last year has alerted water quality officials of ground-water contamination discovered near the company’s Rincon area plant.

In a letter dated May 27, attorneys for Berry Petroleum told the Regional Water Quality Control Board that workers found traces of petroleum hydrocarbons in the ground water at an oil field near its Rincon plant.

The company’s attorneys told state water officials that Berry’s operations do not appear to have caused the contamination, which the company said appears to pose no health threat.

“There is no (drinking) water basin in this area, and no beneficial use is made of this shallow ground water,” the letter states.

Berry Petroleum has already retained a consultant to evaluate samples of the water and investigate the source of contamination. But attorney Marc L. Charney said that does not mean that his clients are to blame.

“It looks like something that couldn’t have come from any Berry operation,” Charney said.

Jim Ross of the Regional Water Quality Control Board in Monterey Park said he would wait for results of the consultant’s report before launching an investigation of his own.

“These (incidents) are not that uncommon,” said Ross, who heads the agency’s site cleanup division. He said there is a “high potential” for impacts to ground water from any oil-production operation.

“After we see the report, then we usually conduct a field inspection,” Ross said.

Bush Oil Co., a division of Berry Petroleum, spilled 84,000 gallons of thick crude into McGrath Lake near Oxnard after a pipeline burst in December.

Hundreds of birds and other species were killed as a result of the leak, which is under investigation by the Ventura County district attorney.