Firms to Pay $150 Million for Dump Cleanup

Nearly two decades after a Riverside County landfill was identified as the worst toxic waste site in California, private companies that dumped most of the hazardous materials have agreed to pay $150 million to help clean it up.

The work covered by the settlement, announced at a Los Angeles news conference Thursday, will involve treating contaminated underground water at the Stringfellow Acid Pits and testing cleanup technologies on the soil.

“It’s the first step toward actually getting some work done so we can get a final cleanup,” said Penny Newman, an activist representing many of the 7,500 people who live near the dump. “After 10 years of negotiating and haggling with the responsible parties they are finally stepping forward and agreeing to do some work.”

Stringfellow operated as a licensed industrial landfill from 1956 to 1972, before most people were aware of the potential hazards of waste that was being dumped. The waste, including probable carcinogens and heavy metals, was poured into unlined ponds scattered across 17 acres.

The chemicals eventually seeped through the ground and into wells that supplied the nearby community of Glen Avon with drinking water. The poisonous plume extends about three miles south of the dump.

The settlement, stemming from a 1983 lawsuit by the federal government against companies that used the landfill, is the second largest ever obtained for private cleanup of a federal Superfund site. The largest was $200 million, obtained in three settlements concluded last year in the cleanup of a Monterey Park landfill.

But the Stringfellow agreement does not fully resolve who ultimately will pay for a complete cleanup.

Although about 200 companies, individuals and federal agencies dumped hazardous materials at Stringfellow, the 18 firms that agreed to the $150-million settlement are viewed as holding major responsibility. Among them are McDonnell Douglas Corp., Rockwell International Corp. and the Stringfellow Quarry Co.

But the 18 companies still want the state of California to pay most of the costs because it licensed the site for industrial dumping.

“The state was the one that did the original investigation of the site that proved to be woefully inadequate and then told everybody that this was a safe, properly licensed facility for disposing hazardous wastes,” said Barry Goode, an attorney for one of the firms. “The companies that disposed of wastes then did so lawfully.”

In a tentative ruling Wednesday night, a retired Superior Court judge agreed with the companies and said California should pay at least 75% of the total cleanup costs, estimated at $200 million to $800 million. The state plans to appeal that decision.

“The government and the taxpayers shouldn’t be held responsible for hazardous waste sites that are of a major benefit for private companies such as these,” Deputy Atty. Gen. Don Robinson said after the ruling.

Until that case is decided, the private companies will spend about $70 million toward cleaning up Stringfellow, government attorneys said.

The other $80 million, earmarked for reimbursement to the federal government for its previous work at the site, will not be released pending a final decision on the state’s responsibility, according to the attorneys.

The delay in the cleanup caused by lawsuits and counterclaims over the years has frustrated people living near the dump. For more than a year in the mid-1980s, the pollution forced residents of rural Glen Avon to drink and bathe with bottled water. Eventually an alternative water system was put into use.

Newman, representing a residents’ group called Concerned Neighbors in Action, said many of her neighbors have suffered ailments ranging from respiratory problems to cancer that they blame on the contamination. She said some have died.

“It is happening every day,” Newman said. “There are a lot of my friends who have not made it in the last few years.”

She said 4,000 residents have sued the state and the county to recover damages ranging from diminished property values to wrongful death.

Under Thursday’s settlement, the companies agreed to install wells to extract and treat contaminated ground water from the site and from Glen Avon. The federal government already has installed some wells and a treatment plant on the site.

In addition, the companies will conduct soil tests to determine whether contamination can be removed by sucking up the chemicals from the soil in the way a vacuum cleaner operates.

The final decision on how to clean up Stringfellow’s soil has yet to be made. Options include digging up the soil and dumping it elsewhere--which would move the contamination--or putting a lid over it and continually treating the ground water.

Rick Varenchik, a spokesman for the California Environmental Protection Agency, said the government estimates it may take 446 years before the contamination can be removed from the ground water.

Toxic materials have seeped into crevices and fractures in the rocks and cannot be pumped out for treatment, he said. Instead, the pollution in the ground will have to break down naturally over time.