EPA Weighs Plans to Purge Ground Water Contamination

GLENDALE â€”  The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is considering a variety of plans to clean up contaminated ground water in south Glendale, including a $25-million proposal favored by the agency that would require at least 15 years to purge the toxins.

The plan calls for drilling a series of shallow wells that would pump 2,000 gallons of water a minute to a plant where air-stripping towers would remove industrial solvents, according to an EPA report released Monday.

The contamination was found in the early 1980s in an industrial area between San Fernando Road and the Golden State Freeway (5), roughly south of Broadway. No water wells are located in the area, said Donald R. Froelich, Glendale water services administrator. A site for a plant and towers has not been selected, Froelich said, but will probably be located in Los Angeles, not Glendale.

The EPA is considering six alternatives, which use various methods of removing toxins and using the treated water. The favored plan would blend treated ground water from south Glendale with water distributed by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, Froelich said.

EPA studies estimate that manufacture of a plant and equipment would take three years and that treatment of the water would require at least 12 more years.

The south Glendale plan covers the last of four contaminated zones in the east San Fernando Valley under investigation by the EPA. All four areas--in North Hollywood, Burbank, and north and south Glendale--were designated in 1986 for cleanup under the federal Superfund program, which identifies the nation’s worst toxic sites.

Businesses found to have contributed to the pollution over the past 50 years could be held liable by the EPA for cleanup costs, officials said. The primary contaminants are carcinogenic chemicals found in a wide variety of industrial solvents used in dry cleaning, metal plating, machinery degreasing and other manufacturing processes.

A North Hollywood treatment plant has been in operation since March, 1989, and a second ground water extraction and treatment plant is being built in Burbank, EPA spokeswoman Paula Bruin said.

Notices were sent last month to 35 businesses and property owners in Glendale and Burbank as suspected contributors to pollution in the north Glendale area, where a $36.4-million purification plan is proposed. As many as 35 more businesses could be named by next spring in that cleanup effort, officials said.

Five of eight water wells in the north Glendale area were shut down after 1980 studies discovered widespread contamination of ground water in the east valley. The contaminants are believed to have seeped into the ground over a long period of time from the improper storage and disposal of chemical solvents. Officials said carcinogenic toxins appear to be slowly migrating south toward the Los Angeles Basin.

A public hearing to discuss the various plans will be conducted by the EPA at 6:30 p.m. Oct. 21 at the Glendale Central Library, 222 E. Harvard St. Written comments, postmarked by Nov. 4, may be sent to Kevin Mayer, project manager at EPA regional headquarters, 75 Hawthorne St. (H-6-4), San Francisco 94105-3901.

Copies of the EPA report are available for review at city libraries in Glendale and Burbank, Cal State Northridge library, UCLA’s University Research Library and at DWP headquarters, 111 N. Hope St., Room 518, Los Angeles.