Former Business Operators Liable for Toxic Cleanup : Pollution: Property owners are ruled not primarily responsible for underground leaks on land they inherited.

The State Water Resources Control Board has ruled that the former operators of a Lincoln Avenue gas station and carwash are responsible for cleaning contamination from leaking underground storage tanks, rather than the landowners.

The decision came on an appeal by the property owners, who had inherited the apparent liability from their parents when they died.

In a Jan. 11 letter to the landowners, the board said that the leaseholders on the property, in the 6900 block of Lincoln Avenue, have primary responsibility for cleaning up the site and its underground storage tanks.

The decision temporarily relieves Carolyn Mitchell of Fountain Valley and her brother, Richard A. Kimberly of Novato, who inherited the property when their parents died in 1993. They have secondary responsibility, according to the board’s supervising engineer, James George Giannopoulos.

Kimberly said he is ecstatic about the ruling.

“As if it wasn’t stressful enough to lose my parents, the thought of being financially ruined from a multimillion dollar cleanup was devastating. . . . Our family had nothing to do with the pollution.”

Secondary responsibility is a term that is “not routinely used,” according to Mike Harper, manager of the board’s local oversight program. “It means that the people weren’t responsible for making the mess, for creating the problem, the pollution. If the (primary) person is initiating the cleanup action, they can just stay in the background.”

The site was identified by the Orange County Health Department, which contracts with the state board.

In 1988, five leaking, 12,000-gallon tanks were removed from the site by the operators, who later applied to the state’s Underground Storage Tank Cleanup Fund for reimbursement. But the board first ruled that responsibility and the reimbursement for the cleanup belonged to the property’s owners, who had leased out the 1.07-acre lot decades ago, before the leaseholders built the gas station. Three tanks remain on the site, which may have to be replaced, as well as any contaminated soil or ground water.

When the property’s owners died, their children, Kimberly and Mitchell, were notified of their responsibility by the water board.

“Their parents died and left them this piece of property,” said Hans W. Herb, their attorney. “You can’t imagine the surprise to these people.”

The family then challenged the ruling, which, if not reversed, could cost them more than $1 million, more than the $800,000 assessed value of the property, he said.

“Why should these people who inherited property be on the hook?” Herb asked, calling the reversal “a very important public policy issue.

Requiring inspectors to apportion responsibility for cleanups “does create more work for the government, but being fair always takes a little more work.”

State officials said that if the parties identified as being primarily responsible for the cleanup--John Grimes, Alex Liao and Robert Burglin--are unable to carry it out, Kimberly and Mitchell could still be liable.

The leaseholders cited in the board’s ruling, who no longer operate the gas station and carwash, could not be reached for comment.