Unocal Agrees to Massive Cleanup of Avila Beach

In a settlement of a decade-long oil spill dispute that could cost $200 million, Unocal Corp. will perform major surgery on tiny Avila Beach, digging up the town’s commercial core and tearing down a number of homes and businesses to remove tons of contaminated soil.

Announced Wednesday, the unusual agreement is designed to clean up a 400,000-gallon spill that has been threatening to contaminate the Central Coast town’s water table and the Pacific Ocean with crude oil, diesel oil and gasoline. Experts believe that an underground pipeline, leading from a wharf to a nearby tank farm, had been leaking for several years when the break was discovered in 1989.

“There has never been a cleanup project [in California] with the impact on a community this one will have on Avila Beach,” said Stephen Sawyer, senior staff attorney with the state Department of Fish and Game.

“Digging up the center of town will inflict short-term pain for a beneficial long-term impact,” said Roger Briggs, executive officer of the state’s Central Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board, one of several government agencies that joined civic and environmental groups in suing Unocal.

San Francisco-based Communities for a Better Environment, another of the parties in the suit, estimated the ultimate cost of the cleanup at $70 million to $200 million.

In discussing the settlement Wednesday, oil company spokesmen declined to offer their own estimate of the cost of excavating and treating the contaminated soil. They did say that the company will pay to rebuild structures that must be torn down and that Unocal will contribute $16.5 million for environmental, recreation and aesthetic improvements.

“What makes this case unique,” said California Deputy Atty. Gen. Ken Alex, “is you have a town sitting on a huge plume of contamination, requiring an enormously disruptive make-over.”

In the past, Unocal had proposed less drastic solutions, including injection of bacteria into the ground to break down the toxic waste. But the company’s proposals were rejected as being slow and unreliable.

Civic leaders who endorsed the cleanup said it will put the town virtually out of business for at least 18 months. While the beach is dug up, 15 to 20 homes and businesses will be dismantled or moved off the town’s main commercial street.

“Everything will come to a stop,” said Saro Rizzo, a local lawyer and member of the Avila Alliance. “There won’t be any tourism in a town that depends on tourism.”

Contamination has been found beneath or next to about 40 structures.

According to Rizzo, residents opted for the massive excavation because it would be done in a year and a half, far less than the seven to 10 years that other approaches would have required.

The contamination has stigmatized the town ever since it was discovered, Rizzo said, lowering property values and making it difficult for people to sell their homes or land or borrow money for improvements.

In the end, the settlement may provide a needed face-lift.

Avila Beach’s quaint “1940s, 1950s eclectic look” is not entirely a matter of local preference, noted Rizzo, who said the owners of nine buildings that will be demolished and rebuilt by Unocal had been hoping to upgrade their properties.

Under the settlement, Rizzo said, Unocal will pay relocation costs for residents as well as compensating workers for lost jobs.

The case against Unocal was brought under a rarely used provision of California’s Proposition 65, enacted 10 years ago to ensure proper labeling of toxic materials. The law also allows citizens to sue over threats to the safety of their drinking water.

In Avila Beach, the water table threatened by the oil spill is not currently a source of drinking water. But it is listed as a potential source by the Water Quality Control Board and that was sufficient basis for a suit.