Sites Unknown

The property seems perfect: great location, well-designed house, good price. The landscaping is lush, the ocean view sublime.

But beneath the plush lawn, the bright begonia beds and the kids’ jungle gym could lie something ominous: an abandoned oil well, bubbling tar, methane gas, a city water main.

At best, subterranean surprises lie dormant, posing no health risks. At worst, they belch fire or burst. Most of the time, they sit unnoticed. That is, until savvy home buyers or suspicious homeowners do a little investigating. What they uncover isn’t always pretty.

Long Beach resident Clint Stadig discovered a little too late that his backyard soil was contaminated with petrochemicals, the byproduct of an underground oil tank that had been buried near his garage.

“I was in shock, absolute shock,” Stadig said. “We’ve opened a can of worms I wish we’d never known about.”

From Ventura to Newport Beach, many of the region’s most concentrated residential and business areas have been built atop abandoned gas and oil fields. Many homeowners don’t know of their existence, and most home buyers don’t seem to care. But experts say they should.

“Southern California was one huge oil field,” said Ron Baker, an information officer for the California State Department of Toxic Substances Control. “It’s important to know what was on yourland before it was converted to housing. Unfortunately, the average person doesn’t consider doing this.”

There are 70 oil fields in the L.A. Basin, containing about 33,000 known wells, according to the state Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources. About three-quarters of the wells have been abandoned, only about 25% of them sealed to today’s strict standards. The rest were capped according to the requirements of the time.

Dried-up wells from the 1920s may have been literally abandoned, with no plugs or sealants, said Richard Baker of the Division of Oil and Gas. Before 1985, some cities checked residential areas for tanks, others didn’t. In any case, “lots of houses are built over wells,” he said.

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Stadig, a 45-year-old retired insurance company employee, discovered his Long Beach property’s history after closing escrow. A neighbor informed him that the previous owners used to gas up their fleet of trucks with oil from a gas pump that was connected to a 550-gallon underground tank.

The neighbor pointed out the remnants of the gas pump--some concrete blocks resting against a five-car garage--and joked about the convenience of having an oil source on one’s property.

The tank was installed in 1945, and was reportedly removed 16 years later, according to information Stadig received. But no one knows for sure. Requirements for abandoning tanks then were less strict than today’s.

“We’re still trying to get abandoned tanks up to present-day standards,” Richard Baker said. “Most are properly abandoned, but many, many are not.”

Stadig said that neither a home inspection nor an escrow title search had uncovered records of the tank, although he later found his property listed on the Long Beach Fire Department’s Underground Storage Tank List. The spiral-bound notebook lists every known underground tank in the South Bay city.

While experts claim that most backyard storage tank sites pose few health risks to homeowners, Randy Wittorp, a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency spokesman, warns that major health risks are present when petrochemical pollution affects the subterranean water table.

That occurs when rainwater comes in contact with contaminated soil, then finds its way into the underground aquifers, which store a great deal of the city’s drinking water. Even a small amount of contaminant can pollute large amounts of water, Wittorp said.

Properly sealed petroleum tanks avoid that problem, he added.

“The health risk is with the potential impact on ground water,” Wittorp said, “not with those living in homes above the tanks.”

That assurance offers little comfort to Stadig and Tom Rachal, 42, a computer specialist and co-owner of the contaminated Long Beach property.

Although the city of Long Beach has said that the contamination level is low enough to avoid soil remediation, the pair were told by state officials that if they go ahead with plans to tear down their dilapidated garage for rebuilding, they must have the ground rechecked for contamination, Stadig said.

If the water table is found to contain an unacceptable level of contamination, Rachal and Stadig are responsible for cleaning up the affected area, they were told. That process usually includes removing the polluted soil and hauling in new dirt.

The estimate for a 10-by-10-foot cleanup is $34,000, Stadig said, while a worst-case scenario--in which they must remove contaminated soil from adjacent properties--could cost $525,000, including the new garage.

“The toll on me has been great, mentally, physically and financially,” Stadig said. “And now we know that when we sell this property, we have to disclose that it’s contaminated. It’s a nightmare.”

While Rachal and Stadig are left to pursue legal remedies, real estate experts say that a similar nightmare can be avoided by doing some early detective work. It sure paid off for Pasadena resident David Bronson.

In October 1999, the aerospace scientist opened escrow on a hillside home he and his wife had fallen in love with. Shortly after putting a deposit on the house, he noticed a steep ravine adjacent to the property.

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Wondering how much rain would cascade down the ravine and how it might affect the property, he began a weeks-long investigation that took him from a licensed home inspector to a city civil engineer, and finally to the department of building and safety.

The building department permit for the house revealed a large drainpipe running from one corner of the lot to the other, and directly under the living room. The city water main, which measures 52 inches in diameter, is buried only two feet below the ground.

“My gut reaction was that the pipe was a major obstacle to the escrow, even though we were well into it,” Bronson said. He added that although he was concerned about potential pipe erosion and damage to the house in the event of an earthquake, his primary concern was his legal responsibility to disclose the existence of the drainpipe to future owners.

“My wife and I didn’t want any resale problems down the road,” he said.

Bronson, who pulled out of escrow, was prudent to consider the disclosure issue.

Real estate attorneys caution home sellers that they have a legal obligation to disclose problems about the environmental condition of their homes, including hazardous substances and flood and wildfire risks, to the extent that they know about them.

Bryan Mashian, a Los Angeles real estate attorney, recommends that buyers hire an environmental engineer to issue a written report, but warned that the process is expensive, about $700.

He also cautioned that buyers have little legal recourse if they discover toxic materials on their properties after the sale is complete. The burden rests on the buyer to prove that the seller had knowledge of a problem and failed to disclose it.

If buyers don’t want to pay for an engineer to check out the property in question, they can do the legwork themselves, Torrance attorney William F. Clark said. Buyers should head for their city’s building and safety division and check the property file for drilling permits. They should also investigate what the property was used for before it became a residence.

Eric Neilson, a civil engineer and president of the Keith Cos. in Costa Mesa, recommends an even simpler route: Go to the public library or the local city or county planning department and look at historical photographs of the area they’re moving to.

“It’s important to know what went on on the property, to know about long-term seepage problems,” Neilson said. “You need to look at the past. But I guarantee that 95% of people don’t do it.”

Bill Brooks, a Los Angeles resident, didn’t have to look any further than the backyard of the Miracle Mile home he purchased five years ago to see what nature was serving up. He found tar oozing through small fissures in the concrete on the property, located just blocks from the La Brea Tar Pits.

Brooks was so smitten with the house and neighborhood, where other properties also have mini-tar pits, that he bought the house even after the sellers disclosed that the gooey stuff erupts fairly regularly. The tar seeps through the cracks, accompanied by methane fumes.

In March 1985, a methane gas explosion ripped through a Ross Dress for Less store at nearby 3rd Street and Fairfax Avenue, injuring 24 people and forcing the closure of stores in the shopping center for several days. Methane is a colorless, odorless, highly explosive byproduct of the oil fields.

Today, the risk of methane gas explosions is slight, experts say. The Los Angeles Building Code calls for laying pipes to collect and vent the gas, then covering the pipes with a plastic membrane. Additional safeguards, including methane detectors, also are in place.

But Richard Baker cautioned that Mother Nature can be tamed only so far. “Oil has been seeping here for thousands of years,” he said. “There’s not much you can do about it.”

Brooks said that the backyard presence of tar was not a big issue for him--it’s located in a self-contained section of the yard--until he decided to install a pool two summers ago. The first contractor to look at the site declined the job, saying he was certain the city would not grant a permit.

After hiring a geological survey company to find out where the tar layer began--10 feet below the ground surface, it turned out--Brooks was granted a pool permit on the condition that his contractor place 6 feet of dirt between the tar level and the ground. That left a depth of only 4 feet for the pool. So he extended the pool 2 feet above ground level.

“It worked out fine; this is just what we do around here,” Brooks said. “On our street, you can see where the tar has run down over the years. It’s a little inconvenient to clean up, but I still wouldn’t hesitate to buy in this area.”

Not all home buyers’ property problems are so easy to solve, however, nor are they always confined to their own backyards.

Encino attorney Robert Peter Weiss recalled the case of a Torrance home buyer who unwittingly bought a condominium situated near a Superfund site, a polluted area that is subject to federal cleanup mandates.

Although the condominium complex did not occupy contaminated ground, it was within walking distance of the Del Amo Toxic Waste Site, the location of the Superfund cleanup. Not a strong selling point for future buyers, the homeowner claimed.

She sued the seller, the real estate broker and agent for nondisclosure of the nearby toxic waste site. The defendants all claimed ignorance of the Superfund site. The case was settled shortly after the trial began.

Ron Baker, of the State Department of Toxic Substances Control, said that more and more agricultural land--contaminated with pesticides--and former oil fields are being converted to housing today. It behooves consumers to do their homework, he said.

“Buying a house is the most expensive investment we make,” Baker said. “Read the title report and do your research on the property. Even if the investigation is expensive, it will cost you less in the end.”

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So What’s Under Your Property?

Finding out what lies beneath your property takes some legwork, but experts say it’s worth the effort. A trip to the library or local agencies can reveal the presence of underground storage tanks, pipelines and the history of the area.

Realtors can explain disclosure laws to home sellers and buyers to avoid legal entanglements and delineate liability when toxic substances are found on a property.

“Do a reasonable investigation, but don’t become an alarmist,” said William Tarrazas, of Track Info Services in San Diego. “Home buyers and agents can protect themselves from many potential problems with a minimal effort.”

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You can research your property with help from the following:

* The Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources: provides maps of abandoned and current oil wells for 24 Southern California cities. (714) 816-6847 or (805) 654-4761 in Ventura.

* Local fire departments: lists of underground storage tanks.

* California State Department of Toxic Substances Control: information on hazardous waste sites and cleanup. (818) 551-2800; (714) 484-5300; (916) 322-0476.

* California Environmental Protection Agency: information about water, air and soil contamination. (916) 324-9670.

* U.S. EPA: information about Superfund sites. (415) 744-1500.

* City and county planning departments: for history of the property.

* City department of building and safety: to look at permits issued for tanks, etc.

* Public library: look for historical photographs of your neighborhood to see what was there in the past.

* “Environmental Hazards: A Guide for Homeowners, Buyers, Landlords and Tenants,” published by the California Department of Health Services.