Residents Warn of Potential Hazards on Disney Site

Neighbors of Disney’s planned $2-billion Creative Campus in Glendale said Tuesday that the project’s environmental impact report glosses over potentially toxic hazards on the site.

Disney plans to build the office complex on 125 acres now occupied by an aging business park near the Golden State Freeway. From the 1930s through the ‘50s, the land was home to the Grand Central Air Terminal.

Residents who appeared before the Glendale City Council to comment on the project’s environmental report said they supported the development but were concerned about possible health dangers from chemicals left in the soil and in tanks buried at the site.

“Public opinion is, as far as I can tell, universally supportive of the project,” said Rod Sharkey of the Glendale Homeowners Coordinating Council, an umbrella organization of homeowners groups.

In a written report to the City Council, the Coordinating Council said it wanted the final environmental report to include plans for dealing with potentially carcinogenic dust that could be stirred up by construction, the removal of underground storage tanks and the treatment of possibly contaminated ground water.

Their arguments were bolstered by a state Department of Toxic Substances Control letter faxed to the city Tuesday. It called for the environmental report to better address the toxic waste issue and to include more detailed plans for the removal of contamination.

But when Chris Halstead, a member of the Glendale Homeowners Assn., said the City Council should “fully disclose the presence of those chemicals,” Councilwoman Ginger Bremberg accused him of overstating the problem.

“I don’t really think this is going to lead to a catastrophe, murder and mayhem in the streets,” she said.

Later, when homeowner Odalis Suarez said that a “suspected carcinogen is known to be present in this drinking water,” Bremberg accused her of being “close to hysterical” and “using words like ‘toxic’ and ‘carcinogenic’ to push panic” buttons among the public.

Residents also criticized the environmental report itself for being too long (more than 2,000 pages) and complex.

The report’s bulk “discouraged the process of review by members of the public,” said Joanne Hedge, president of the Glendale Rancho Homeowners Assn.

Susana Lago urged that the final report include more “plain language.”

Except for Bremberg, most other members of the council had little reaction to the public comments. A few speakers who followed the homeowners association officials agreed that potential environmental problems were being overstated.

“If you want to have a Chicken Little attitude, I’m certain the sky could fall down on any project in Glendale,” said homeowner Carol Gilmore, who lives near the site.

The last speaker, Focian Rodriquez, said he has lived half a block from the site for 20 years. He urged both sides to settle their differences and get on with the project.

“Please, tear down all those junky buildings,” Rodriquez said, adding that he and his neighbors want a nice, tree-lined place to walk.

City Council members, in their capacity as the city redevelopment agency’s directors, must next decide what measures to include in the final environmental report.