SUPERFUND COMMITTEE URGED NOT TO DOWNSIZE.

Byline: Bill Hillburg Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON - A local eyewitness to a toxic disaster urged the Senate on Wednesday to rebuff President George W. Bush's efforts to downsize the Environmental Protection Agency's Superfund cleanup effort.

Montebello City Councilwoman Norma Lopez-Reid, a longtime neighbor of the Operating Industries Inc. Landfill, praised the EPA's effort to clean up the site during her testimony before the Senate Subcommittee on Superfund, Toxics, Risk and Waste Management.

``Our community would still be facing a horrible threat if it were not for the Superfund program,'' said Lopez-Reid, whose Iguala Street home is adjacent to the former landfill.

EPA has spent $217 million to clean up the site.

Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., who chairs the panel, had harsh words for Bush and Marianne Lamont Horinko, a top EPA administrator who also testified at the hearing. Boxer criticized cuts in the number of Superfund projects and a plan to shift much of the cost burden of cleanups to taxpayers.

``More than 40 percent of Californians live within four miles of a Superfund site,'' said Boxer, who noted that California is home to 114 polluted sites, including military bases, landfills and defense plants.

There are 16 Superfund sites are in Los Angeles County, including four each in the San Fernando and San Gabriel valleys, that pose threats to drinking water supplies. All local sites are in still various stages of cleanup.

As part of Bush's shift of budget dollars to defense, EPA has cut the number of cleanup projects nationwide from 87 in 2000 to 47 in 2001 and a projected 40 this year. Bush also opposes reinstatement of a tax on oil and chemical companies that, along with penalties collected from polluters, paid most of the cost of Superfund program.

The agency has further refused to release an updated list of approved and delayed Superfund projects, citing the need for confidentiality.

Horinko testified that the EPA was ``fully committed to Superfund's mission.'' She also agreed to furnish Boxer with a project list, with the caveat that Boxer not make the information public.

Boxer refused, saying: ``I don't work for the secret government. I don't work the CIA. Residents of communities have a right to know about this program.''

LOCAL SITES

Here are Superfund sites in the San Fernando Valley. Officials say cleanup efforts are incomplete at all the sites.

--Groundwater in the North Hollywood-Burbank area

--Glendale area groundwater

--Verdugo Basin

--Pollock well field in the East Valley

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LOCAL SITES (see text)