BELL GARDENS : Trial to Decide Land Deal, Cleanup of Site

5614 Shull St. is a mess in more ways than one.

The vacant 1.5-acre industrial parcel is overgrown with grass and trees, which provide shade for homeless who squat there. Black drums of soil samples sit in rows and an open pit marks the spot where an underground storage tank was once buried.

According to city tests, the soil where the 24-foot-long tank was buried is contaminated with a combination of cleaning solvent and a petroleum-based liquid that may have seeped into the ground-water aquifer. Nobody is quite sure of the extent of the contamination, where it exactly came from, or--most important--who should clean it up.

“Everyone is pointing fingers right now,” said Anthony R. Ybarra, Bell Gardens director of community development.

The city has spent more than $500,000 to find out what is going on below the surface of the land it purchased for $595,000 from Herbert B. and Judith E. Brohn of Red Bluff in 1985. The city is suing the couple, who once owned controlling interest in the Berk Oil Co., which used the land as a supply yard and maintained the tank.

The city filed its lawsuit in Norwalk Superior Court in 1992 to force the Brohns and Berk Oil to pay for the cleanup, which could exceed $1 million. Because the soil is tainted, the land is virtually unsalable and unusable, the city claims. The city bought the land with the intention of building affordable housing, Ybarra said.

Meanwhile, the Brohns have countersued the city, saying that the purchase agreement came with an “as is” clause that protects them.

A trial is scheduled Sept. 28.

According to the city’s lawsuit, the Brohns told them that they had cleaned out the tank, filled it with sand and paved it over. But four years later, consultants hired by the city pried open the tank and found that it still held drums of contaminants.

“It was quite a surprise to everybody,” said Robert Lemen, attorney for BCL and Associates, the consulting firm that conducted the 1985 soil studies and has been named in the city’s suit for negligence. “Everyone had assumed the sump (tank) was clean and empty.”

Lemen said that BCL’s soil study was not negligent and that the consultants noted contamination in their report and gave the city a $21,000 estimate for the cleanup. But the city, Lemen said, did nothing until it discovered the tank was leaking four years later and the contamination had spread.

The Pacific Metal Craft Co., which once owned the property next door to Berk Oil, is also defending itself against allegations by the Brohns that it contributed to the contamination. Pacific Metal Craft still operates there but the city now owns the property.

“Anybody who says there is more contamination now (than in 1985) is just guessing,” Lemen said. “It is a matter of much speculation among experts.”

“This is the kind of problem going on all over the L.A. Basin,” said Vicki Land, an attorney for the city. Land said that the aquifer, which may have been contaminated, is not used for any type of consumption.

In 1992, after the city discovered that the contamination had spread, it stopped its $5,266 monthly payment to the Brohns. While the city ultimately seeks to nullify the land deal and get its money back as well as punitive damages, the Brohns are asking for $452,000--the remaining balance of the original purchase price--in a lump sum.

Superior Court Judge Robert Einstein ruled last month that the Brohns are not responsible for the cleanup, but this month he reversed himself.