SIGNAL HILL : Site for Park Accepted With Cleanup Clause

Sometimes you can’t even give away land in this city that once teemed with oil rigs.

Two local charitable foundations finally persuaded the city last month to accept their gift of about a half an acre of land at the corner of Burnett Street and Gardena Avenue for a possible park. But the offer had been on the table for five years, and the city only accepted after the foundations agreed to pay $80,000 to clean up the contaminated site.

Planning Director Gary Jones said the city did not want to get stuck paying to clean up soil saturated with oil from an abandoned well--a common problem with vacant land in a city where millions of barrels of oil have been produced since 1921.

The Long Beach Memorial Medical Center Foundation and the Albert Reinhardt Foundation owned the property.

The city’s parks commission has studied three possible uses: a park geared for people who work in Signal Hill, a community garden or an area for in-line roller-skating.