Cleanup Begins at Fullerton Toxic Dump

The first shovelfuls were thrown Wednesday on a World War II-era toxic dump that 14 years ago was designated a federal Superfund cleanup site, symbolically burying almost two decades of controversy and frustration.

Local and federal officials gathered at the 22-acre McColl dump site for a groundbreaking ceremony that they proclaimed was the end to a hazardous-waste drama that had residents fighting government agencies and powerful oil companies.

The groundbreaking launched a one-year construction process to “cap” 100,000 cubic yards of petroleum waste, sulfuric acid and cancer-causing benzene at a cost of $39 million.

“Some have doubted that this day would ever come,” said Rep. Ed Royce (R-Fullerton), who played a key role in calling attention to the contamination. “I am happy today to be able to participate in this historic moment--the beginning of the end of the 17-year McColl saga.”

The controversy began about 1979 when city officials discovered that the land was contaminated and posed a health risk to the many residents who lived around the site, which had been used to dump aviation fuel refinery waste.

The dump, created in the 1940s, is south of Rosecrans Avenue and west of Sunny Ridge Drive, an area once in high demand by homeowners. But when people began moving into the area in 1978, they started feeling poorly and complained of odors and ooze emanating from 12 sumps filled with waste.

The state investigated and found that the material in the dump was toxic. Residents banded together and demanded answers and later filed lawsuits against oil companies, land developers and government agencies.

Defendants have paid millions of dollars to settle suits brought by about 300 residents.

On Wednesday, some residents praised the plan to cover the hazardous-waste dump.

“This ends up being the ultimate and finest of solutions,” said David Bushey, president of the Fullerton Hills Community Assn., a group that once was a harsh critic of the dump. “We’d be quite derelict and selfish to ask for more. There will be few dump [sites] around that could match it when it’s done.”

The dump will be covered with a 5-foot-thick cap that officials say will lock in the waste and keep water out.

The cap, to be topped with grass, contains seven layers of soil, sand, a clay liner, a gas extraction system, a permanent seal and a flexible cushion. The impermeable cap is intended to keep water out and block gasses from escaping. Should odors seep out, area residents will be temporarily relocated until the leak is repaired, project coordinator Al Hendricker said. Construction on the site has already started.

“We’re here for a burial and also for a resurrection,” said Fullerton Mayor Chris Norby.

Charles S. McAuley, who owns 14.7 acres of the site and the adjacent Los Coyotes Country Club and Golf Course, said that covering the dump area “is the best and safest way to go for now.”

A previous proposal to have the contaminated soil hauled to another county in California was rejected.

Another plan proposed installing an incinerator at the site, but residents opposed it because, they said, it would still be hazardous.

“The community got together and said, ‘That’s insane,’ ” said Chuck Bennett, a McColl area resident. “There certainly needs to be a celebration now.”

Once the capping is finished, McAuley said, he plans to expand his golf course to 27 holes from the current 19 holes. Part of the course will sit atop some of the contaminated land.

Completion of the project is expected in one year. The McColl Site Group, which includes Shell, Atlantic-Richfield, Texaco and Union Oil of California, had been ordered to clean up the dump. How much each company will pay for the cleanup is being debated.

The first part of the cleanup will involve building a wall around parts of the site’s perimeter to prevent seepage of contaminated liquids. Also, construction of a gas collection and treatment system--part of the cap--will begin, said Patti Collins, an environmental scientist with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Then grading, landscaping and other aesthetic improvements will begin, she said.

Workers will maintain the cap and conduct long-term studies to monitor ground water and the integrity of the cap, Collins said.

During construction, as many as nine families may have to temporarily move, officials said. Their homes are the closest to the site, and construction equipment will be operating in their backyards. The McColl Site Group has set up a 24-hour hotline for residents with questions. The number is (714) 523-0160.

The site was used in the early 1940s as a disposal facility for waste sludge.

Over the years, the waste was covered by oil-drilling mud and topsoil, but it periodically seeped to the surface via fissures.

The delay in cleaning up the site was due, in part, to conflicts over who would pay for the work and how to do it.

On Wednesday night, about 70 residents of the area met with representatives of the McColl Site Group to discuss the plan to cover the dump.

“We are glad they are finally getting it capped,” said resident Betty Porras, who has been fighting to have the site cleaned up since the late 1970s. “They are actually going to make an improvement.”

Porras, once the chairwoman of the McColl Dump Action Group, which fought to get life back to normal in the area, said that when she moved in, she was not told that the land was contaminated.

“They told us we were buying an executive home,” she said.

She said that she would have preferred to have the toxic waste shipped out but that the capping is a good alternative.

Another area resident, Penny Zarett, who bought a home in 1980 overlooking the golf course, said that the plan “sounds wonderful. These people really seemed concerned and sincere.”