Cleanup Took Twists, Turns During Struggle to Succeed.

THE history of the former Franciscan. Ceramics site in the Atwater Village section of Los Angeles has all the makings of a Hollywood movie.

From 1990 to the mid-1990s -- the time the toxic site was slated for cleanup to make way for proposed redevelopment projects -- there were already charges of illegal dumping, two cases of bankruptcy and the felony conviction of a contractor that resulted in jail time.

The 45-acre site was once the home to Franciscan Ceramics, which made its celebrated Desert Rose pattern of dinnerware -- to date the most-sold American pattern of all time -- for nearly 70 years at the site just north of Griffith Park.

At the time the factory started operations in the 1930s, Los Angeles was a sleepy town centered around downtown and it wasn't unusual for businesses and contractors to simply dump waste products on the ground.

"They dug pits and just poured the material in the pits," said Ron Baker, chief spokesman at the state Department of Toxic Substances Control. "It was thought at the time that all the stuff was biodegradable."

Cups, saucers and toxics

The ceramic sludge was a byproduct of the dinnerware made by Franciscan, which in 1979 was acquired by Josiah Wedgewood & Sons Ltd. All production of the company now known as Franciscan Ware was moved to England in 1984 and the Atwater Village site ceased operation.

By the time the '80s rolled around, Atwater Village had become a funky, if a little rundown, village of bungalow housing, thrift stores and mom-and-pop shops. At the time, the Franciscan site was said to be one of the largest undeveloped parcels in northeast Los Angeles. Developers, willing to take a gamble, were lining up as suitors for the polluted 45-acre site in an area ripe for development.

At one time, the Los Angeles Unified School District -- years before its embarrassing Belmont Learning Complex fiasco -- thought it might be a possible site for a high school. Another proposal being thrown around was a training facility for the Los Angeles Police Department. What finally won out was a proposal to build a shopping center with Toys R Us, Costco and Best Buy stores on the front end of the property and a Korean church on the most polluted back portion.

The first developer to buy the land in 1988 was Franciscan Promenade, a development partnership and subsidiary of Schurgin Development Cos. of Los Angeles. Schurgin was one of the biggest shopping center developers in Southern California. It was thought at the time that cleanup costs would be around $6 million, using the soil-washing method.

Further investigation revealed that the site was much more polluted than originally believed and, even worse, included widespread asbestos from the demolition of old buildings. A cleanup was not unrealistic, but it would cost far more than the initial estimate.

With Franciscan Promenade footing the bill, the DTSC entered into two separate agreements for the soil cleanup and asbestos removal. During this period, 6,022 truckloads of materials weighing approximately 132,000 tons were removed from the site. Much of it was taken to Kettleman Hills hazardous waste dump in the San Joaquin Valley, while some of it was packaged in containers and shipped to Chicago for decontamination.

Work on the demolition of on-site buildings started, but was halted when it was found that asbestos was being released into the air during the process. Al Sesar, a Newport Beach construction company official who, it was reported, arranged to have the cancer-causing substance removed, spent 60 days in jail and was charged a $5,000 fine in connection with the illegal removal and disposal of the asbestos.

Soaring costs ruin developer

When work resumed on the demolition, it was overseen by both the state and the Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety. About this time, Schurgin was having trouble finding financing for its shopping center, especially after cleanup costs soared to $23 million. The cost proved too much and the company was forced into bankruptcy.

In December 1992, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. took ownership of the Franciscan site after Schurgin's lender, Crossland Savings, also went bankrupt.

After assuming ownership, the FDIC split the land into two parcels, selling the back 20 acres to the Lasung World Evangelical Church. The church is now sitting on what was once the most polluted portion of the site.

The front 25 acres was developed into a shopping center by Asset Acquisitions. It now houses Toys R Us and Costco. The whole parcel to this day is being continually monitored for any residual contamination.