Waste Removal Plan Fuels Worries

Concerned parents, school officials and property owners packed the auditorium Thursday at St. Francis De Sales School to question state environmental officials about their plans to remove gasoline and waste oil from beneath a nearby gas station.

The gasoline and oil apparently leaked into the soil and ground water from two underground storage tanks at a Mobil service station at Moorpark Street and Fulton Avenue, said South Coast Air Quality Management District officials.

Mobil Oil Corp. is asking AQMD for permission to build and operate a soil vapor extraction and treatment system at the site. The system would draw the gas and oil out of the soil and burn it, giving off fumes.

AQMD officials say the nitrogen oxide, carbon monoxide, sulfur oxide, benzene--a known carcinogen--and other volatile organic compounds that would be emitted into the air do not pose a significant health risk.

“We are very concerned about protecting the health of the community. That is why we are prescribing the highest technology available,” AQMD assistant deputy executive officer Jack Broadbent said in a telephone interview after the meeting.

The chance that children or residents of the area would develop cancer as a result of emissions from the extraction system, Broadbent said, is “less than one in a million.”

But parents at the meeting didn’t appear to be convinced.

“This is a disgrace, a scandal and a slap in the face of the community, schools, residents and business owners in the area,” said Michael J. Malak, whose son attends St. Francis De Sales.

Malak said he wanted to know the extent of the ground water contamination, the level of chemicals that will be emitted into the air and the potential impact those emissions would have on children at St. Francis De Sales and nearby Dixie Canyon Avenue Elementary School.

Diane Colucci, whose daughter is a fifth-grader at St. Francis De Sales, said she was particularly irked that parents were informed about Mobil’s request to build the extraction system through a memo from the AQMD--couched in technical language, she says--sent home with students Sept. 17.

Colucci and other parents immediately sought a public hearing with AQMD officials to get answers to their questions.

About 110 parents, residents and school officials questioned AQMD and state Environmental Protection Agency officials during Thursday’s two-hour session.

“The key is getting more information,” said Dixie Canyon Principal Melanie Deutsch, who sent a representative to the meeting. “When something is known to be cancer-causing, it is frightening and it’s not something we want to have around. The main thing has to be the health and safety of the kids.”

After the meeting, AQMD officials said they would take the group’s comments into consideration as they reviewed Mobil’s permit request.