Supervisors to Investigate PCP Cleanup

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to investigate why it has taken five years, nearly $1 million and two consulting firms to try to figure out how to clean up illegally buried containers of the drug PCP near the Pitchess Detention Center in Castaic.

And so far, county officials acknowledge, no one knows where, or even how much PCP was buried in 20-foot pits near the jail’s landfill when law enforcement agencies placed drugs seized in raids there on an apparently routine basis in the 1970s.

For the past three years, Montgomery Watson, a Pasadena-based environmental consulting firm, has been trying to answer those questions before the county decides how--or whether--to clean the mess up.

To date, the county has paid Montgomery Watson about $770,000 for its work. Before that, county officials paid about $165,000 to an environmental and geotechnical company to study whether the PCP had contaminated underground water.

County officials acknowledge that PCP has reached ground water, but they insist it has not reached drinking water supplies--which are lower--and is not expected to.

Officials have said the buried chemicals pose no danger to jail inmates or to local residents.

But spurred by a series of news reports in recent weeks, Supervisor Mike Antonovich, who represents the area, has grown increasingly frustrated at the slow pace of Montgomery Watson’s work--and has criticized the county for lacking a cleanup plan five years after the PCP was discovered.

Antonovich aide Lori Howard said Tuesday the supervisor is worried about the degree of contamination of the local water supply--despite reassurances from Montgomery Watson and county officials working with the company.

“Mike is concerned that they may be taking too long to address a public health problem,” said Howard. “So he wants additional oversight.”

A spokesman at Montgomery Watson said Tuesday that the company had no comment.

Most of the 127 burial pits in the area have not been checked yet, so it is unknown how much PCP was buried there.

But officials from the Sheriff’s Department and Fire Department--which is the lead agency in the cleanup effort--have said tests at wells in the area show no signs that chemicals have reached drinking water supplies, and that the buried PCP shows no signs of seeping to that level.

Fire Department officials have said that any cleanup work would have to be performed slowly-and carefully-because some of the buried PCP is contained in glass bottles that could easily break during an attempted cleanup. The drug’s chemical constituents include ether, a highly explosive substance.

Montgomery Watson has advised against removing the chemicals for the time being, county officials said.

The PCP--uncovered by the Sheriff’s Department in 1991--has been attributed to drug seizures by law enforcement agencies, including the Sheriff’s Department and the federal Drug Enforcement Administration.

The burials were illegal. But the district attorney’s office decided not to file charges, in part because investigators determined that those who buried the chemicals lacked criminal intent.

In addition to investigating the cleanup at Pitchess, Antonovich’s motion asked that county officials including Chief Administrative Officer Sally Reed evaluate current procedures for cleanup of hazardous materials and “determine the adequacy of these procedures to assure cost-effective cleanup efforts and accountability on the part of those who contract with the county to assist in our remediation efforts.”

The board also voted to send a letter to U.S. Atty. Gen. Janet Reno asking for financial help in the cleanup, due to the DEA’s involvement in the dumping.

A DEA spokesman could not be reached for comment on Tuesday.

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Extent of Contamination

Although county officials acknowledge that chemicals buried in pits near Pitchess Detention Center have seeped into the water table, it poses no danger to the drinking water supply. The chemicals, including PCP, are from drug arrests by law enforcement agencies in the 1970s.

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1. Chemicals are buried in pits.

2. Chemicals leak from container and seep into the water table.

3. So far, contamination has not reached the aquilfier, where drinking water is drawn.