San Gabriel Valley water cleanup gets cheaper.

Project financing to come from business, government

A plan to clean up the most contaminated portion of the San Gabriel Valley's groundwater - at a much lower cost to businesses than originally anticipated will be unveiled at a public meeting this week.

The Baldwin Park groundwater contamination area is the largest of five polluted groundwater sites in the San Gabriel Valley, said Richard Hansen, general manager and chief engineer for the Three Valleys Municipal Water District. That agency serves 500,000 people in the eastern portion of L.A. County.

Volatile organic compounds from solvents and degreasers which leaked into the earth aquafer pollute the groundwater in an area three miles long and one mile wide under the cities of Azusa, Irwindale and Baldwin Park, Hansen said.

The Baldwin Park site, as it is called, makes up about 50 percent of the total groundwater contamination in the San Gabriel Valley, Hansen said. And the plan to clean up that contamination is about a year ahead of plans to clean up the other four sites, he said.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has called the five sites the largest Superfund area in the U.S. and has estimated that it would cost more than $1 billion to clean up, he said.

But under a plan that is scheduled to be introduced at a public hearing Tuesday (Oct. 10) at Baldwin Park City Hall, the cost could be "significantly less" than originally anticipated, he said.

The plan to clean up the groundwater was conceived by Pasadena-based Parsons Corp. It involves a technology which removes contaminants from water by blowing air through the water. It is cheaper than another technology which involves running the water through carbon filters, Hansen said.

New estimates put the cost of the cleanup of the Baldwin Park portion of the San Gabriel Valley groundwater contamination at about $250 million over a 20-year period.

Hansen would only say that that $250 million price tag to clean up the Baldwin Park portion was significantly less than original estimates. But a source who asked not to be indentified said it now appears the cost will be about half the original estimate.

1999 opening

If all goes well, Three Valleys Municipal Water District officials hope to begin operating a $55 million water treatment facility in 1999, Hansen said.

Financing is expected to come from three main sources: the Metropolitan Water District, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and 16 companies, said Wayne Praskins, EPA Superfund project manager for the Baldwin Hills site.

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation is expected to pick up as much as 25 percent of the tab, under federal legislation which was passed a few years ago, Praskins said.

And the Metropolitan Water District is expected to buy the cleansed groundwater for up to $250 an acre-foot, Hansen noted.

Because the project is expected to clean about 30,000 acre-feet of groundwater a year so it is up to drinking water standards, the MWD could be paying up to $7.5 million a year towards the costs of the cleanup, Praskins said.

The rest of the costs will be paid for by private companies that the U.S. EPA believes are responsible for causing the contamination.

The U.S. EPA has identified 16 companies as "potentially responsible parties" in the Baldwin Park.

Four companies with operations in Azusa, Aerojet General Corp., Hurry Corp., Oil & Solvent Process Corp. and Wynn Oil Corp. have been identified as the "largest contributors," Praskins said.

Those four companies and seven others have already paid a total of $3 million for the design of the clean-up plan, Praskins noted.

Hansen of the water district said local and federal officials have been moving ahead on the cleanup plan before all of the issues of who will pay for what portion of it are completely resolved.

Resolution sought

Water district officials hope payment for the cleanup can be resolved without any costly or lengthy litigation.

The Superfund site has hampered the economy of the San Gabriel Valley, Hansen said.

"Small businesses cannot get loans from banks," he said. Small business owners cannot use their property as collateral for loans because banks won't lend on property with potential environmental liability, he explained.

Will Lee, executive director of the San Gabriel Valley Economic Council, said several business leaders are very supportive of the plan.

Because the cleaned-up water is going to be sold to MWD, some businesses are going to pay "pennies on the dollar" for the cleanup, he said.

"Going back three to 10 years ago, everybody thought that it would cost $1 billion to clean up this basin," Lee said. "Now we find out that was very exaggerated."

The plan put together by the water district "is the best deal we're (the business community) going to get," Lee said.