PCB cleanup to begin soon

Jenny Marder

Cleanup of homes near the contaminated Fieldstone property could

begin as early as June, the state Department of Toxic Substances

Control said.

State regulators have completed what they hope will be the final

round of testing to determine how many houses are contaminated with

PCBs, a cancer-causing substance that has spread from the empty lot

nearby.

“It’s looking very promising that we may have finally gotten the

limits defined,” Greg Holmes, the department’s unit chief for site

mitigation cleanup, told the City Council on Monday night.

The Fieldstone property is an undeveloped 42-acre site at the

northeast portion of the Bolsa Chica Wetlands and bordered by Graham

Street, Bankton Drive and Falkirk Lane.

Polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, were found in soil samples on

the site five years ago and are considered by the Environmental

Protection Agency to be probable human carcinogens. Production of the

chemical, found in electric transformers and hydraulic fluid, was

banned in 1977.

Regulators also unveiled Monday the most recent test results,

which show three of the eight properties sampled in this last round

of tests to be contaminated.

One had 2.8 parts per million, a level that Holmes said is

considered to be of concern, and the other two contained very low PCB

levels. Anything above one part per million is of concern, regulators

have said.

Of 19 properties sampled during the past year, 11 have been found

to be contaminated.

Results from three more properties are still pending and will be

available in the next few days, said Greg Sweel, senior engineering

geologist at the Department of Toxic Substances Control.

City Council members pushed for the department to start cleanup as

soon as possible, stressing that residents are upset at the slow

progress.

“I just want to reiterate the frustration and concern for speed,”

Mayor Connie Boardman said Monday at the study session.

Council members also grilled the state regulators about

precautions being taken to prevent the chemical from spreading more

than it already has.

Holmes said he is not sure what caused the PCBs to migrate to

surrounding residential areas, but predicts that they were spread

through wind, runoff or grading activities.

State officials will do everything they can to keep the dust down,

which shouldn’t be difficult, Holmes said, since they will be using

such small equipment.

“We’re looking at surgical removal,” he added. “We’re looking at

using picks and shovels rather than trucks. It will be small

equipment and our standard is to cover any truck that holds

contaminated soil.”

For most of the houses, cleanup should take no more than a day, he

said.

“It may be enough to tell them to close their windows and not go

in their back yard,” Holmes said.

The dangers of inhaling airborne chemicals that rise with dust

during heavy winds is possible, Homes said, but not a grave concern.

“There is a risk, but keep in mind, most of the levels are pretty

low,” Holmes said. “We don’t believe that concentrations in the dust

could present a significant risk.”

The state agency has been briefing the residents on how to avoid

contact with the chemical.

“We have told the residents what to avoid,” Holmes said. “If you

can prevent contact, you can prevent exposure. We have asked them to

avoid digging and removing large quantities of soil.”

* JENNY MARDER covers City Hall. She can be reached at (714)

965-7173 or by e-mail at [email protected].