FIRM AIMS TO RESTORE CITY'S HEART; BERMITE LAND'S TAINTED SOIL SLATED FOR CLEANUP, HOUSING.

Byline: Patricia Farrell Aidem Daily News Staff Writer

At first glance, an Arizona company's plan to buy the old Bermite property - nearly 1,000 acres of gentle hills in the heart of Santa Clarita - is a brilliant investment.

But below the surface - both literally and figuratively - lies the biggest gamble a landowner has ever faced in this, one of the fastest-growing cities in California.

Explosives, volatile chemicals and other hazardous wastes have been buried on the vast Saugus property that for more than 80 years was used to manufacture munitions for the military. And the planned cleanup has been clouded by a civil complaint, settled earlier this year, claiming that the current landowner initially tried to hide the extent of the contamination.

Few signs remain of Bermite's 300 buildings, mostly sheds where chemicals were stored and mixed. But maps still pay tribute to the company's legacy, with curving dirt paths marked with such colorful names as Phosphorous, Photoflash and Reject roads.

While the cleanup may appear daunting to some, Jerry Swerdlowe, senior vice president of Remediation Financial Inc., is certain it can be accomplished. His company plans to rehabilitate the contaminated land, making way for Porta Bella, a spectacular master-planned community of 2,900 homes and a Main Street-style shopping district.

``It's going to be unbelievably beautiful,'' Swerdlowe said. ``It's going to be one of the most beautiful developments in Southern California.

``We do have quite a job ahead of us. There has been contamination. But by the time this is done, it will be certified by the state that it will be clean.''

Remediation Financial is scheduled to close escrow Dec. 31 on the land, now owned by Whittaker Corp. of Simi Valley. It will pay $15 million to Whittaker, which will maintain an interest in the future development.

Whittaker officials did not return repeated calls.

The development could mark a pivotal step for Santa Clarita - a city that united four communities in 1987, with Bermite at the crossroads. As the city has matured, the boundaries separating Saugus, Canyon Country, Newhall and Valencia have blurred.

If it weren't for the poisons buried beneath the soil, the Bermite land would be Santa Clarita's crown jewel.

``This is the geographic heart of the city,'' city Planning Manager Vince Bertoni said. ``It would be one thing if this were unspoiled natural area, but there's a hole in the center of the city that's been disturbed. Therefore it's an area that should be developed. We see Porta Bella as unifying the area.''

A tough task ahead

Before the first bulldozer rolls across the land, erasing any memory of Bermite, the city, the state and the private interests face an enormous challenge.

Discarded ordnance and chemically tainted soil remain from 1986, when Whittaker closed its Bermite operation. A state-monitored cleanup is not expected to begin for at least a year as investigators continue surveying the land acre-by-acre to see what's there and how to remove it, said Thomas Cota, a hazardous substances scientist with the state Department of Toxic Substances Control.

While crews - sometimes clad in protective gear - scour the land, pull soil samples and drill wells as deep as 500 feet to check groundwater, the city is excited about transforming the old Bermite Powder Co. into gleaming Porta Bella.

A Metrolink train station is already operating at the base of the property, and the city owns adjacent land that someday will be Santa Clarita's civic center. But that won't happen until the Bermite land has been decontaminated and highways have extended across it.

There is no timetable for construction, in part because of the pending sale, DTSC spokesman Ron Baker said.

While the outbuildings have been removed and much of the manufacturing equipment is gone, the soil and water are contaminated, the result of years of dumping solid rocket fuel, corrosive solvents and other elements, Swerdlowe and Baker said.

The plan is to examine the 976-acre property piece by piece in an effort to certify that the toxins are gone and the land is suitable for residential development, Cota said.

State charges settled

In 1994, Whittaker agreed to allow the DTSC to investigate the site and to determine the best way to clean it up, Cota said. The report was completed in 1997, the same year the department filed a civil complaint against Whittaker and its Minnesota-based consultant, Norman Wenck. The complaint alleged a variety of violations of the state's hazardous waste control law and the Health and Safety Code stemming from the company's cleanup efforts.

The complaint sought unspecified penalties and money to cover the cost of the investigation.

The two sides settled the action in April for $400,000 - $160,000 of which was to be spent to plant and nurture oak trees on the land.

The complaint had accused Whittaker and the consultant of falsifying a 1988 report to the state by failing to note numerous sites at Bermite where unexploded ordnance, explosive chemicals and other hazardous materials were buried.

The truth was detailed in an in-house document sent anonymously to DTSC officials, according to the complaint.

The complaint also said that the company improperly removed hazardous waste from the site, treated chemicals to neutralize them and exploded live ordnance without permission.

The settlement included no admission of guilt and was made with the agreement that the state would keep secret the documents seized from Whittaker in a 1992 raid.

Whittaker claimed the documents were seized illegally in a criminal investigation, but the state used some information to develop its case, said Steve Koyasako, assistant chief counsel to the DTSC. No criminal charges were ever filed against Whittaker.

``As long as we felt we achieved what we wanted, which was to be able to do the cleanup with the benefit of the documents and also to punish Whittaker, that was sufficient,'' Koyasako said.

The upshot is that future residents of Porta Bella might never know what historic secrets prompted a full-scale hazardous waste cleanup of the land where they've planted their front yards.

Still, state officials are confident the cleanup will render the land ``safe for its intended use,'' Koyasako said.

``We believe we have the information we need to complete the remediation of the site,'' he said. ``We feel very confident that the property can be cleaned up for its intended use.''

But, he noted, once the site is developed, the state will not be liable if a problem stemming from the property's historic uses surfaces. Liability would go to the city and the developer.

Remediation Financial won't be in the picture by then, Swerdlowe said. That company specializes only in readying tainted land for development. The property will be sold with development plans attached, he said.