Waste, Away : The Buried Black Goo Bubbles To The Surface Each Summer in This Westminster Tract; Crews in July Will Begin To Scrape It Out-For Good

By looking, no one would guess that beneath the tranquil back yards of this middle class neighborhood an ancient black ooze lies creeping toward the surface.

Neatly manicured lawns border quiet sidewalks lined with trees. Residents walk their dogs and wash new cars parked in fresh-swept driveways. And everywhere, the impression is one of quiet life in the sunny ambience of North County.

Every summer, though, something odd happens as the soil warms in this tract near Sowell Avenue and Golden West Street. A strange dark goo seeps up through back-yard lawns and cracks in the patios. It exudes a powerful stench, residents say, that causes coughing, headaches, sleeplessness, chest pains, nausea and breathing difficulty. One resident even attributes the recent loss of a lung and regular bouts of severe asthma to the annual appearance of the black goo.

“It’s miserable,” said Gloria Delzeith, 51, a resident since 1978 whose asthma requires almost monthly hospitalization and has kept her from working for the past two years. “It’s black, it’s tarry and it stinks like rotten eggs. It’s just been a mess; it keeps coming out of the ground, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

Federal officials plan to do something about it this summer. Starting late in July, they will begin a two-year project during which as many as 50 families will be relocated for up to four months. Bulldozer operators in breathing masks will dig deep into 25 back yards, tearing up swimming pools, patios, fences and room additions, which the government later will replace. Then they will remove 45,000 cubic yards of the buried petroleum residue that officials say makes this one of the worst hazardous waste sites in America.

“We have moved quickly on this,” said Dick Vesperman, project manager for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which is overseeing the $15-million cleanup. “Not all hazardous sites are in residential areas.”

In fact, this one wasn’t heavily residential either in 1936 when, according to historical records gathered by the EPA, the Long Beach-based Ralph Gray Trucking Co. dumped petroleum waste products of unknown origin into four open pits in a field the company owned.

Numerous complaints to health officials and the Westminster Chamber of Commerce landed the matter in court. On Dec. 2, 1936, the company’s owner, Ralph Gray, was convicted of maintaining a public nuisance, a misdemeanor, and ordered to pay a $100 fine and to eliminate the problem within 30 days.

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Apparently that never happened. Four years later a county health inspector was responding to further complaints with predictions that, left alone, the mess would seep away “within a short time.” And in 1958 a developer, intent on building a housing tract unmarred by the unsightly pits, moved the hazardous material into two long trenches buried 18 feet beneath the back yards of 25 of the houses he was building.

“Apparently he felt he could do better with it underground,” Vesperman said. “He just put dirt over it.”

Federal officials say Gray has since died, they can’t find any descendants, and the trucking company no longer exists. Nor can they find the developer of the tract.

So two years ago, the site was added to the National Priorities List of Superfund sites, thus qualifying it for the federally funded cleanup.

That project will take place in two phases.

This summer, Vesperman said, about half of those affected will be temporarily moved at government expense to nearby hotels, rented houses or the homes of relatives and friends. The families will include 12 whose back yards are to be excavated as well as their nearest neighbors.

The waste will be taken to an as yet undetermined hazardous waste disposal site in California. And later, Vesperman said, government workers will reconstruct the torn-up back yards with landscaping and swimming pools, patios and room additions.

EPA officials have set up headquarters in one of the affected houses; a three-bedroom rental which, like other homes in the neighborhood, would probably sell for $150,000 to $200,000 if banks were willing to finance the sale--which none are, residents say.

The project’s second phase will occur next summer when the same thing will be done to the remaining affected back yards.

The ethnically diverse community, where 12 languages are spoken, has “been very supportive,” Vesperman said. “It’s really a cooperative effort.”

Yet some residents aren’t pleased.

Paul Nguyen, a 23-year-old law student who has lived here with his mother for 10 years, said he has never seen evidence of the black ooze.

“I never gave it a thought,” he said. “This is an inconvenience; we don’t want to leave.”

Others, however, say that the project couldn’t happen a moment too soon.

Mike Torres, a sheet metal worker who has lived here for 34 years, said that four members of his family already suffer from asthma, which he attributes to the waste. “It’s great that they’re doing it,” he said. “We’ll enjoy being in a different location for a while.”

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And Delzeith, whose family expects to spend much of the summer living at a nearby Marriott hotel, said that while the cleanup may be too late to significantly improve her own health, she hopes that it will help maintain the health of others.

“It’s taken them a long time,” said the former office supervisor, who had a lung removed last year because of what she describes as internal “blistering.” While no medical evidence exists directly linking her condition to the waste, Delzeith said, she is convinced that it stems from years of breathing the material’s fumes.

“They should have done this a long time ago,” she said, “but I’ll be glad when it’s all cleared out.”

While officials say they have detected no statistically significant increase in the incidence of disease among residents of the tract, they acknowledge that long-term exposure to some of the chemicals contained in it, particularly sulfur dioxide, can exacerbate pre-existing upper-respiratory conditions, including asthma.

“There’s a chemical soup down there,” said Marilyn C. Underwood, a toxicologist with the state health department who is familiar with the site. “It’s a health hazard.”

Vesperman concurs.

“The risk assessments we’ve done have indicated that there is some potential long-term health threats from continued exposure,” he said. While the material is relatively harmless while buried in the ground, he added, there is some danger when it seeps to the surface during hot summers or because of excavation.

One of the major hurdles in the project, officials say, is finding places where relocated residents can have their pets.

“It’s a problem,” said Fraser Felter, the agency’s community relations coordinator. “We’ve got people with tortoises, 250 koi, rabbits, pheasants, chickens, birds, dogs and cats. Just a little thing like pets can really complicate matters.”

While government officials tackle that, some residents have begun packing.

“I’m looking forward to it,” Delzeith said of the planned move. “We’re leaving everything except food, clothes and important papers. Some other stuff we’ll put in storage.”

Betty Haynes, 73, said spending four months away from her home of 16 years “will be kind of fun. I don’t get out much any more; this will be something different.”

Back-Yard Cleanup In a few weeks, the federal Environmental Protection Agency will begin to excavate and remove toxic oil refinery waste buried in a Westminster housing tract. The waste wil go to an authorized disposal site. *Evaluating Waste Sites Surface leaks Soil samples with hazardous waste: Small cores of soil establish locations and toxicity. Air monitoring wells: Measure noxious fumes and hazardous emissions during excavation process. *Excavation After fences, patios, pools and some rooms are removed, backhoes load hazardous material on trucks. When excavation is complete, lots will be regraded and pools, patios, fences and rooms rebuilt. *Hauling Hazardous Waste Under federal safety guidelines, dump trucks hauling hazardous waste must have bed lined with thick, durable plastic sheeting. Waste is loaded into bed, sprayed with a foamy moisture sealant and battened under. *Original disposal pits: Oil-refining materials buried at site in 1936. Area to be cleaned in 1995. Area to be cleaned in 1994 *Topsoil (surface-3 feet) Hazardous waste (3-18 feet) Security fencing surrounds cleanup area; other security measures include increased police patrols and additional street lighting. Water-based misting system, woven into security fence, keeps fumes and dust inside excavation area. Orange County Flood Channel Source: Environmental Protection Agency; Researched by APRIL JACKSON / Los Angeles Times