NESI waste dump a dangerous nuisance, grand jury finds

Kenneth Ma

HUNTINGTON BEACH -- An Orange County Grand Jury report released last

month found that a 40-acre toxic waste site near the ocean could be

dangerous for residents, young people and transients who breach its aging

chain-link fence.

The report, released by the 19-member jury, said both the city and the

county need to take stronger measures to keep the site on the southwest

corner of Magnolia Street and Hamilton Avenue secure from trespassers and

the homeless.

“When you walk out on that site, you will think you are on a different

planet,” said Bill Atkinson, a grand juror and principal author of the

report. “My concern is that it has been there so long and that nobody has

done anything about it.”

Considered to be an eyesore in the residential neighborhood that

surrounds it, the barren strip of land called the NESI toxic waste dump

lies near Edison High School and within two miles of the city’s white

sandy beaches. It is home to three 25-foot-deep lagoons filled with oil

and tar, along with other toxins -- such as sulfuric acid, drilling

wastes and styrene -- that have accumulated over the years, the report

said.

A chain-link fence topped with barbed wires surrounds the toxic dump’s

parameters, but portions of the fence are brittle from rust and aging.

Grand jurors determined that it “poses potential dangers to the health

and safety of the community” if anyone should wander onto the site.

City officials said they have been working with past and present

owners of the site to find solutions for the toxic dump.

“The report focuses attention on a problem we all know about and want

to do something about,” said Rich Barnard, a spokesman for the city. “We

thank the grand jury for looking at it and reminding us that there is a

problem.”

Huntington Beach officials were criticized in the report for not being

cooperative during the panel’s eight-month investigation.

“Meetings with city officials in Huntington Beach have left the grand

jury with feelings of frustration summed up by the reaction: ‘We’re being

stonewalled,”’ the report states.

Plans to develop the site go back nearly a decade.

In 1992, City Council members approved plans to build 502 homes on the

site, designs that were approved by the California Coastal Commission in

1994.

Barnard said the specific plan was approved to give the site’s

property owner an incentive to clean it up.

In 1993, Signal Mortgage Co. of Long Beach bought the property with

the intention of building homes there when the landfill was cleaned and

cleared by state officials.

Further action has been pending ever since, and Barnard said the

property owner and the state Department of Toxic Substances Control has

the ultimate authority over the site. The state must approve the cleanup

plans before work on the site can begin.

Ted Broedlow, president of Signal Mortgage, said negotiations over the

cleanup plan with the state agency have been going on for five years. One

reason for the lengthy negotiations was to ensure that toxic emissions

are not released during cleanup, he added.

But the grand jury said the current security measures are too weak to

continue any longer.

Atkinson said trespassers and the homeless could easily get onto the

site by crawling under or climbing over the fence.

The site “is very dangerous, attractive and enticing to the young

adventurers who may be lured to its unknown dangers,” the report stated,

adding that neighborhood children have been drawn to the dump, which also

serves as a campsite for the homeless.

And while Atkinson said the homeless are no longer a problem at the

site, they will be again if the fencing is not improved.

“It has become so easily breachable that there are trails emanating

from the holes in the fences,” the report shows. “The cesspools of toxic

waste within the site, including the styrene dump, have insufficient

protection against juvenile and/or adult intrusions.”

City Planner Mary Beth Broeren, while acknowledging a problem with the

fencing, said there are no health risks to area residents and that the

oil on the site poses no health risk at its current stage.

Atkinson said he disagrees with Broeren’s assertion, and that he

believes the site has toxic material that is dangerous to people who

trespass there.

Edison High School Principal Brian Garland said the school has an

emergency plan to transport students to another school or reroute trucks

further away from the campus in the event that toxic emissions are

released during the cleanup.

But recent soil tests of the site done by a private environmental

consultant, in cooperation with the state, showed the cleanup will not

pose a danger to the surrounding community or the high school, Atkinson

said.

The city has 60 days to officially respond to report’s

recommendations.