From Toxic Dump Site to Golf Course? : Cleanup: McColl neighbors are hoping for a return to green after the EPA approves capping plan.

By DEBORAH SCHOCH

Oct. 9, 1995 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

FULLERTON —

When the Ritters bought their spacious four-bedroom house on Fairgreen Drive 17 years ago, they paid extra for the view of the golf course.

Their rear deck overlooked the manicured green lawns of the sixth and seventh fairways of the Los Coyotes Country Club, lending their home an aura of bucolic peace.

Then a chain-link fence went up in 1984, and a portion of the golf course was included in the McColl federal Superfund site.

“It was a terrible shock,” recalled Ken Ritter, whose deck view now includes a brown swath of Superfund land.

But today, dreams of golf courses are alive again on Fairgreen Drive.

The new optimism follows the Sept. 28 announcement that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has decided on a cleanup plan for the McColl dump--a thick cap to be built atop the contamination, blocking emissions and keeping water out. The $30-million cleanup is expected to take two to three years.

What sets this plan apart from many other Superfund cleanups is that at least some land is to be restored as a golf course.

While grassy fairways have long been built above old landfills, this appears to be the first time in California that golfers will play atop a treated federal Superfund site.

And at a time when the reuse of once-polluted land has become a rallying cry for government and business alike, the notion of a fenced-off dump recycled as fairways and greens has a certain appeal for residents here.

“They want something pretty to look at. They don’t want the brown, ugly thing they’re looking at now to be forever their inheritance,” said Chuck McAuley, whose firm operates the Los Coyotes Country Club.

The cause of rebuilding the golf course has been championed by neighbors weary of overlooking vacant land and fences, said David Bushey, president of the Fullerton Hills Community Assn.

A golf course makes both aesthetic and economic sense, Bushey said. If the land is turned back into fairways and greens, not only will it be maintained, but it serves a useful purpose.

That approach appears to be feasible, say officials with the EPA and the McColl Site Group, the team of four oil companies that has been ordered to clean up the World War II-era dump where about 100,000 cubic yards of petroleum waste are buried.

Still uncertain is exactly how much of the site will be transformed into fairways.

“It’s definite that there will be a restored golf course. What is indefinite is where it would be and how large it would be,” said Al Hendricker, McColl project manager for Shell Oil Co.

McAuley said he is confident that a course could be built across the entire 22-acre site, and Bushey said the community supports that idea.

Eleven years have passed since a piece of the country club was fenced off in preparation for a site cleanup that was supposed to take only 12 to 15 months.

In the process, Los Coyotes lost two holes on one of its three nine-hole golf courses. That left the country club with only two commercially viable nine-hole courses, McAuley said.

The country club land accounts for nearly 15 acres of the 22-acre site. McAuley would like to see the golf course extended across the remaining seven acres, but that idea’s feasibility is still under study.

One possible flaw: An expanded course could subject some neighbors to flying golf balls, requiring large screens to shield nearby homes, said Shell’s Hendricker.

“It can be a touchy point,” he said.

Still, the very nature of a golf course seems to fit with the capping plan, officials said.

Although the McColl cap is still being designed, it is expected to be about four feet thick, consisting of layers of such material as high-density polyethylene and a synthetic clay liner, with several feet of topsoil above it.

Such soil is typically planted with vegetation and kept watered to prevent erosion that could damage the cap below. So the well-watered grassy fairways that golfers crave could also serve to protect the cap.

And the golf-course fence would help keep the site secure from vandals, McAuley said.

EPA official Michael Montgomery said that no federal money will go into rebuilding the golf course at McColl. But the environmental agency will work with the oil companies to assure the cap is monitored to protect against releases, Montgomery said.

“We’re going to have to make sure that there’s no human contact with that waste,” Montgomery said.

As proof the plan will work, residents point to the Industry Hills Sheraton Resort and Conference Center in City of Industry, where two 18-hole golf courses were built on a former landfill.

Now, on Fairgreen Drive, the neighbors await the cleanup and the return of the golf carts.

“Three years from now,” Bushey said last week, “those fences should be down, and people should be up there with their golf clubs.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Putting It Back Together

Toxic waste at the McColl Superfund site will be capped, and the area returned to its former state--as back-to-back par-four holes at Los Coyotes Golf Course. It could take up to three years and $30 million to complete the project.

Vegetative layer

Grass

Soil

Geofabric

Crib Walls

Drainage trench

Geofabric

Slurry walls

Soil: Existing soil is returned to original site to prevent contamination

Drainage trench: Manages flow of rainwater or runoff from irrigation

Geofabric: Combination of netting and clay liner to prevent water seepage into waste site; collects gas rising from waste

Toxic waste: Tarlike sludge created by dumping petroleum wastes during World War II