TAINTED-SITE CONTROLS VOWED PACOIMA NEIGHBORS FEAR CHEMICALS, DUST FROM CLOSED PLANT.

Byline: Kerry Cavanaugh Staff Writer

PACOIMA - Environmental officials on Wednesday promised to appoint an on-site inspector, hold monthly meetings and immediately control dust rolling off the old Price Pfister site in Pacoima.

In a public meeting Wednesday night, officials responded to residents' concerns about the safety of the contaminated site and about tainted dust blowing off the property and into homes.

``Over the last month or so I was driving by during demolition, and there was dust flying everywhere,'' said Kim Garrett, who lives in the area. Garrett said neighbors had complained of dust coating their window screens.

The Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board promised to step up dust control and require an on-site inspector when work is being conducted.

The hearing was organized by the board after some residents and activists said their environmental concerns were being overlooked in the rush to redevelop the 25-acre site.

Price Pfister's parent company, Black & Decker, sold the site in June to Dallas-based Lincoln Property Co., which intends to build a shopping center and Lowe's Home Improvement store there. The development could generate at least 660 jobs in a community with unemployment rates topping 20 percent.

Some residents also asked for a teen recreation center or a job-training center on the property instead of the proposed shopping center. Councilman Alex Padilla said the shopping center is not a done deal.

``We're concerned about the environment, and we want to make sure the site is safe so we can get to the next step of what's going to go there in the future,'' Padilla said. ``That property is still a location of a lot of opportunity.''

However, construction can't start until Price Pfister cleans up tainted soil and groundwater, thick with lead, heavy metal, oil, chromium-6 and perchloroethylene, a potent chemical used in cleaning metal.

Price Pfister has demolished all but three buildings on the property and has been excavating tainted dirt. Workers installed a system to vacuum chemical vapors from the soil and another system to inject air into groundwater, which forces the chemicals into the soil to be vacuumed out.

Both systems were shut down in April during the demolition.

Price Pfister closed the Paxton Street faucet manufacturing plant in 1997 and moved its operation to Mexico. Some 1,400 people were laid off.

Kerry Cavanaugh, [phone]

kerry.cavanaugh(at)dailynews.com

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Map:

Former Price Pfister site

Gregg Miller/Staff Artist