Cleanup to take about 3 years

The Ascon landfill site in southeast Huntington Beach may at last start a long-promised cleanup by the end of the year, but it won’t be quick. Even in one of the lesser cleanup scenarios, it would take years, officials said.

For the first time in more than a year, representatives of the companies responsible for cleaning up the 38 acres of land at Magnolia Street and Hamilton Avenue came to a City Council study session to give council members and residents a look at their plans.

Planners are aiming to get the proper permitting by summer 2009, said Mary Adams Urashima, who represents the companies responsible for the cleanup and Ascon owner Cannery Hamilton LLC.

“Work should begin shortly after that,” she said.

While several alternatives are on the table for the extent of the cleanup and what happens to the land afterward, the panel of cleanup officials said the most likely option will take a few years.

“We’re thinking it’ll be between 2.5 to 3.5 years,” said Tamara Zeier, project coordinator for the cleanup.

Nine oil companies, including Chevron, dumped toxic waste on the site from the 1930s to the 1980s. Those that were still in business afterward, such as Chevron Texaco Corp., Conoco Philips Inc. and Exxon Mobil Corp., are funding cleanup efforts.

While several succeeding owners of the property since 1992 planned to clean up the site and turn it into housing, that plan has been essentially abandoned.

“At that point, the property owner felt that if it did the highest and best use [housing], it would finance the cleanup,” Urashima said. “Now, they’re looking at something that would be appropriate for the site in consideration of site history, and in consideration of the community surrounding the site.”

Council members said they wanted to be sure residents were getting the least nuisance possible considering how long the huge undertaking would last, and how many trucks would constantly be going through to pick up material and ship it out.

“Going back to the trucks, I know it’s going to make a huge impact on the neighborhood,” Councilman Joe Carchio said. “There’s a school there. How are we going to address that, so we don’t interrupt what’s going on at school and their activities?”

An emergency fix in 2005 after heavy rainfall has taught the cleanup crew a lot, Urashima said. There will be rules in place so the constant stream of trucks can’t line up in the street, and there will be carefully chosen ways in and out of the site.

Urashima said that during the earlier work, “Two weeks after trucks started running, we had a resident ask us, ‘So when are the trucks going to start running?’”

MICHAEL ALEXANDER may be reached at (714) 966-4618 or at [email protected].