7 Firms May Be Billed for Superfund Water Cleanup

The Environmental Protection Agency has told seven industrial firms in Burbank and North Hollywood that they may be required to help pay for the cleanup of San Fernando Valley ground water under the federal Superfund program, a job that could cost more than $100 million during the next 20 years.

In letters to the companies, the federal agency stopped short of blaming them for chemical pollution that has closed at least two dozen drinking water wells belonging to the cities of Los Angeles and Burbank. But the EPA said the companies are “potentially responsible parties” who might be required to contribute cleanup funds if further evidence links them to the contamination.

The EPA also notified 22 other firms in Burbank, North Hollywood and Sun Valley whose chemical use and waste disposal practices are under review that they may be added to the list of those “potentially responsible” as more information about them develops.

All 29 companies have been invited to an informational meeting to be held by EPA on Sept. 13 at Burbank City Hall.

Potentially Liable

Those cited as potentially liable were Allied Signal Aerospace Co. of North Hollywood, formerly Bendix Electrodynamics Division; Space Lok; Kahr Bearing; Pacific Airmotive Corp.; Ocean Technology; Valley Enamelling Corp. and Lockheed Aeronautical Systems Co., all of Burbank. Notices were sent to six of the firms last week and to Lockheed earlier this year.

EPA officials acknowledged that, with the exception of Lockheed, they lack evidence that the companies spilled or leaked chemicals into ground water. The companies “may not be contributors, but we have good reason to believe that they may be,” said Alisa Greene, an environmental engineer with the EPA regional office in San Francisco.

Patti Cleary, an EPA scientist, said the agency hopes to send out “special notice” letters within six months--informing some companies that “we’re looking to them to either clean up the ground water or reimburse EPA.”

Valley well fields are among about 800 sites nationwide to be listed for cleanup under the $9-billion federal Superfund program. The $9 billion is a revolving fund the EPA is supposed to replenish by billing cleanups to polluters when they can be identified.

The well fields made the Superfund list because of contamination by two common industrial solvents that are thought to raise the risk of cancer slightly if consumed in small amounts over many years. The contaminants are trichloroethylene--or TCE--once widely used to degrease metals and dry-clean clothes, and perchloroethylene--or PCE--which has replaced TCE in most industrial applications and was once used to decaffeinate coffee.

Listed Companies

Kahr Bearing, one of the seven companies named as “potentially responsible,” will be represented at the meeting, said John McCauley, the firm’s operations manager. Kahr is working with the California Regional Water Quality Control Board in Los Angeles to test for soil contamination at the company’s plant on San Fernando Road in Burbank, where it manufactures bearings for the aerospace industry.

“I don’t know if we’re bad guys or not,” McCauley said. “At this point, I suspect that we’re not bad guys.”

At Allied Signal, 11600 Sherman Way, North Hollywood, facilities manager Hugh R. Kellenberger said the company in recent years has removed all 13 of its underground storage tanks--including three that leaked--and is completing excavation of contaminated soil.

But Kellenberger said soil contamination reached a maximum depth of 70 feet, well above the ground water about 160 feet beneath his plant. Kellenberger also said TCE and PCE were not among the contaminants found in the soil.

This was disputed, however, by Al Novak of the Regional Water Quality Control Board, who cited data submitted by the company’s consultants. The data showed as much as 1,200 parts of TCE per billion parts of soil, and 2,900 p.p.b. of PCE.

For now, the EPA is focusing on North Hollywood and Burbank. However, the Superfund designation also applies to areas near Griffith Park and the Los Angeles River narrows where Los Angeles and the city of Glendale have wells, and to an area in the Verdugo Mountains where Glendale and the Crescenta Valley County Water District have wells. No cleanup measures have yet been planned for those areas nor potential polluters put on notice.

Health standards for TCE and PCE in drinking water are 5 p.p.b. and 4 p.p.b., respectively. Limits for one or both of the chemicals are exceeded in most of the Burbank wells and at least half of about 80 Los Angeles wells that extend southeast from North Hollywood past Griffith Park.

Mixing, Shutdowns

The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power--which relies on the wells to supply about 15% of the city’s water--is meeting the standard by shutting down the most polluted wells and mixing less polluted ground water with aqueduct water from the Owens Valley. Virtually all of the blended ground water goes to the Central City-Hollywood-East Los Angeles areas, rather than to the Valley, where the pollution occurred.

With worse pollution and less blending capacity, Burbank is not using any of its wells, relying instead on more expensive water from the Metropolitan Water District.

No one knows what TCE or PCE levels may have been served to customers before the contamination was discovered in tests in 1979-80.

But with blending and shutdown of the “hottest” wells, the current threat is mainly one of supply. If the water is left in the ground for health reasons, it will not be available to meet population growth and/or drought emergencies.

The polluted Burbank wells are virtually in the shadow of the giant Lockheed plant. Water taken from monitoring wells beneath the plant has contained TCE and PCE concentrations as high as 7,800 p.p.b. and 43,000 p.p.b., respectively.

Lockheed is under orders from the Regional Water Quality Control Board to begin treating polluted ground water by Sept. 15, and board officials said the company is on schedule. The Lockheed system will extract 1,000 gallons of ground water a minute and remove TCE and PCE down to drinking water levels before discharging the water to storm drains or into the ground. Nonetheless, the EPA is likely to demand a contribution from Lockheed to the rest of the cleanup effort.

Pilot Project

The EPA has spent or committed at least $11 million to the cleanup in the North Hollywood-Burbank area. That amount will fund a study of the extent and movement of polluted ground water and construction and operation of a pilot treatment system to cleanse 2,000 gallons of water a minute near the DWP’s North Hollywood wells. The treatment system, an aeration tower, is scheduled to be operating by this fall.

But the EPA is considering a proposal for a much larger system in Burbank, which would cost $80 million to $90 million to build and operate over the next 20 years, and treat 16,000 to 22,000 gallons a minute.

The Sept. 13 briefing in Burbank is likely to draw a roomful of attorneys, with companies assessing their legal options. Those eventually named as responsible parties may have considerable incentive to settle rather than engaging in a battle with the EPA. Under the Superfund law, a company refusing to share in cleanup costs may have to pay them plus treble damages if its responsibility can be established in court.

EPA officials said they devised their list of 29 companies by reviewing Regional Water Quality Control Board files and from responses to a formal questionnaire sent to more than 100 Burbank and North Hollywood firms. The questionnaire, which had to be answered under penalty of perjury, sought information on current and former chemical use and disposal practices.

Three firms known to have contaminated ground water were not among the 29 notified by EPA because they are miles from the North Hollywood and Burbank wells. One is Rockwell International’s Rocketdyne plant in Canoga Park, which has built a ground water treatment system and is awaiting final state approval for start-up. Another is 3M Riker, formerly known as Riker Laboratories, which is developing a treatment system at its Northridge plant.

Although Cleary of the EPA said the agency hasn’t “ruled them out” as responsible parties, she noted the distance between their operations and the wells.

Another company planning its own ground water cleanup is Mepco/Centralab near Griffith Park. Cleary said the firm wasn’t notified because it is well downstream of the North Hollywood-Burbank wells. However, she said the company may be notified when the focus shifts to pollution at the other end of the ground water basin.