EPA to Clean Up Toxic Site

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has been called in for a $1-million Superfund cleanup of thousands of gallons of hazardous materials left behind at an abandoned Anaheim industrial plant.

A March 1999 fire at the Monitor Plating facility spread at least 50,000 gallons of toxic chemicals, including cyanide, PCBs, laboratory waste and already contaminated soil, according to Steve Calanog, the EPA’s on-site coordinator in San Francisco.

He arrived at the Anaheim site last week to oversee an emergency federal cleanup after county health officials requested help.

“There’s still quite a bit of hazardous waste here that no one is managing or controlling,” said Calanog, who is directing a dozen EPA cleanup workers. “If it rains or a tank leaks, the waste could spread off site, and exposure to cyanide materials could be potentially lethal.”

The plant, on Orangefair Lane near the Riverside Freeway, is in an industrial area with no residents in the immediate vicinity, said Calanog, who is still concerned about getting the waste treated before any vandals or vagrants wander through the area and expose themselves to harmful chemicals.

“There’s evidence that homeless are in and around the property,” he said. “It looked like someone had been around the facility just by the amount of trash and beer bottles left behind.”

Another federal official said there isn’t an immediate health risk, even if someone had been loitering on the property, since the undiluted chemicals are mostly in tanks and barrels.

The owner of the Monitor Plating plant, Brett L. Pio, filed for bankruptcy on Aug. 18. Contractors originally hired to clean up the mess quit because they weren’t getting paid.

Pio was cooperating with cleanup efforts until he filed for bankruptcy, said Kevin Bates, supervising hazardous-waste specialist with the Orange County Health Care Agency. But after he filed for bankruptcy, he didn’t return calls or answer certified mail. Then the property owners, the Slack Family Trust, refused to pay for the cleanup.

So, Bates said, the county was forced to go straight to the federal EPA for help with the massive cleanup.

“There’s a [burned-out building] there with a witch’s brew of hazardous waste, including heavy metals, solvents and corrosives,” said Bates, who added that his agency is investigating possible violations of hazardous-waste laws that would be referred to the district attorney’s office for criminal prosecution.

Pio’s business, industrial plating, involved putting a thin coating of metal on objects. The site’s waste was spread by large amounts of water pumped into the facility to put out the 1999 fire. The water also spread the hazardous waste into a nearby drainage ditch and into soil that is still contaminated, said Calanog.

He said it could take one to three months to complete the cleanup. The EPA team still has to assess the damage in the building itself, which is about 18,000 square feet and contains 70 plating vats buried in fire debris.

The main concern is contaminated ground water and accidental exposure if someone unknowingly strays onto the contaminated soil, said Randy Wittorp, spokesman for a regional office of the EPA based in San Francisco.

Wittorp said he didn’t know how close the nearest drinking-water well is to the contaminated site.

“It’s always possible when you’re doing these removals to find more contamination you’re not aware of,” he said.

Calanog said the site is now fenced, with 24-hour security. His team, including heavy-equipment operators and removal and sampling specialists, will try to leave the site completely free of waste. They will dig up the hazardous soil and have it treated and disposed of before they vacate the contaminated two-acre area.

Even though Pio, who could not be reached for comment, has declared bankruptcy, the property owners are considering a lawsuit against him and a related corporation, said Sam Vaccaro, an Irvine attorney for the Slack Family Trust.

Pio “did start some work and did contract with third parties to do the cleanup, but then he abandoned the project,” said Vaccaro.

Wittorp said there isn’t an immediate health risk, even if someone had been on the property.

“They’d have to have body contact with the hazardous substances in the tanks and barrels,” he said. “The chemicals in the soil would be at much lower levels, so bodily exposure wouldn’t be lethal.”