BELL GARDENS : Disputed Land Deal and Cleanup Slated for Trial

The property at 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 the 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 contamination, where it 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 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.