State Delays Wetlands Vote Amid Cleanup Talks

Amid questions about pollution cleanup, negotiators have postponed until January a decision on whether the state should buy 880 acres of the Bolsa Chica wetlands.

The state Lands Commission has canceled its meeting set for today in Los Angeles, where members were to vote on buying the land from Koll Real Estate Group.

Instead, Koll agreed Thursday to extend its deadline for closing the sale to Jan. 31, officials said. The original Dec. 30 deadline sparked a marathon 40 hours of negotiations this week in Sacramento between Koll and a team of state and federal agencies. Talks also included a Shell Oil Co. affiliate and an outside mediator.

Some hope to convince a second oil company, Phillips Petroleum, to join the talks, although Phillips is pointing to Shell as the firm responsible for cleanup.

State and federal officials are wary of approving a public purchase of Bolsa unless they know that private parties will clean up contamination discovered during tests this year.

Those supporting a public purchase of Bolsa Chica call it essential for preserving California’s largest unprotected coastal wetlands south of the Bay Area.

Plans call for an $85 million public purchase and restoration, funded largely by the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles in exchange for permission to expand their port operations. The project would block the construction of 900 homes vehemently opposed by environmentalists.

But a key sticking point has emerged in recent weeks: the question of which firms should clean up contaminants left behind by decades of oil operations. Robert Hight, the commission’s executive director, said he is optimistic differences can be ironed out in January.

“I think the government as a whole and Koll and Shell are committed to resolving this issue,” Hight said. State Resources Secretary Douglas Wheeler said he is disappointed by the delay but encouraged that talks will continue. Unless an agreement is reached in the next 30 days, he said, “Our prospects are very much diminished.” He noted deadlines faced by the ports, changes at Koll and the impending departure of a key federal official involved in the talks.

Koll Senior Vice President Lucy Dunn said the company sent a letter to the Lands Commission Thursday, requesting the vote be postponed until January.

“It seems like everyone is continuing to make a good-faith effort to make this happen,” Dunn said.

State and federal officials worry about who will pay to clean up the wetlands to a level suitable for a wildlife preserve. A federal report made public this week focuses on problems with soil tainted with arsenic, mercury, nickel, zinc and oil compounds, with much of the contamination found in suspected sump disposal areas and under pipelines.

The current oil operator, Shell affiliate CalResources, has said it is responsible for cleaning up only the 242 acres of Bolsa where it has operated for a decade. And CalResources’ predecessor, Phillips Petroleum, issued a statement Thursday, stating that a 1986 sales contract makes Shell “the appropriate party to remediate any portion of the site that needs to be remediated by an oil company.”

Phillips added: “We do not see any reason why these contract obligations should be allowed to adversely affect the Bolsa Chica project from moving forward.”

Dunn, however, said she hopes Phillips will choose “to take a more active role.”