Burn Dump Heats Up

Water Board Attempts to Skirt Environmental Laws

The Humboldt Road Burn Dump (HRBD) has toxic soil moving, Butte County Air Quality Management District (BCAQMD) monitoring, and everyone holding their breath that dust and litigation don’t fly. The Regional Water Quality Control Board (RWQCB) must be pleased that all their posturing and bellicose behavior made something finally happen at the HRBD. Last year, with their competence in question and their authority challenged, the RWQCB issued a Cleanup and Abatement Order (CAO) and threatened fines. This year, they rushed through environmental review and neglected to obtain federal permits just so they could reclaim their flagging dominance and one landowner could move contaminated soil this summer.

You would think that there must be a serious, imminent threat to human or environmental health for the RWQCB to act that way. We would expect so, yet this urgency, as written in their CAO, is caused by salts like calcium and sulfate, the only suggested impairment in the south fork of Dead Horse Slough, a seasonal stream. Contrary to the RWQCB’s assertion, the salts in the slough do not impair beneficial uses since they are well below even the standards for drinking water and the slough is not a drinking water source (EPA). So what is the deal here? A well read local resident would suggest that they thought that lead was the problem at the HRBD. That is true. There are some very high readings of lead in the soil, but heavy metals are fairly stable if left alone. You might wonder next, what really is the motivation for the RWQCB to so aggressively issue orders and threaten fines? In addition to their agency’s fear of failure on this high profile project, there was pressure from another source that is used to manipulating local policy: developers.

Two local developers, Tom Fogarty and Drake Homes, acquired the cheap burn dump and adjacent land years ago. They have, in concert with the City of Chico, planned to put housing on it, and they are tired of waiting. What a thought! Can you imagine encouraging your friends or relatives to come to beautiful Chico and buy a house on the old burn dump site? No other jurisdiction that we have found has knowingly put housing on an old burn dump or even a “cleaned” burn dump! When the developers’ distress at delayed profits was coupled with the RWQCB’s weariness with the public’s insistence for an improved cleanup plan (see positive results below), the RWCQB created a false sense of urgency with the CAO.

Why is it dangerous to move contaminated soil and build housing on land formerly contaminated when there is no hazard from the burn dump as it existed for over 100 years? The history associated with the answer to this question is important. There was great community concern about the existing hazard of the HRBD when the City initiated the possibility of a cleanup by entertaining housing proposals. In 1998, after hue and cry from Chico’s residents about disturbing all the waste to place housing on or near it, a state agency, the Department of Toxics and Substance Control, required more testing and analysis of the properties. To paraphrase agency after agency after the results were published, the additional testing indicated more acres were contaminated, but the site was basically safe unless a trespasser breached the fence and started digging.

What also became clear, thanks to the work of BCAQMD and the HRBD Public Advisory Committee, is that moving the toxic stew is what constituted the greatest threat to human health and the environment. Blood lead levels are predicted to rise with the Monster Plan (consolidating and capping almost 400,000 cubic yards of contaminated soil). The next hazard is putting residents on land that was part of the burn dump because of potential exposure to toxins that were missed. After all, how easy is it to make sure 157 acres are completely devoid of lead, dioxin, and arsenic? And again, would you want your child or sibling to play on this land or grow a vegetable garden that the RWQCB will promise is clean? Scary thought!

If the relationships behind the scenes are added to the mistrust of the RWQCB’s and the City of Chico’s motives for the Monster Plan, the result becomes more comprehensible. BEC and community representatives witnessed the representatives of these agencies traveling with developers to public meetings, socializing both during and after work hours, and passing notes and discussing recreational plans during public meetings. There should exist, at a minimum, a professional divide between regulators and applicants, yet this was sadly lacking until the City representative “retired” in 2003 and the RWQCB rep was finally reassigned after issuing the CAO. These changes, late in the adulterated process, left the RWQCB to implement what had been crafted or to eat humble pie. Can you guess which choice was selected? Enhancing their image is more important than safety and accuracy.

Though the process has been seriously mishandled by the RWQCB as the administering agency, the reader needs to know that the efforts of some wonderful community members and one agency made a significant difference in what is currently happening at the HRBD and that there are still opportunities to make future activities better in the next year.

Public Involvement Led to Positive Results

  • City Councilors Dan Nguyen-Tan and the late Coleen Jarvis led the City away from the Monster Plan, a destructive cleanup that would have left Chico and its citizens with the liability for an additional 95,000 cubic yards of waste from private landowners. Once the City withdrew from such a precarious position, Drake Homes followed suit, stating concern for long-term liability if they mixed their waste with that of others.
  • All agencies involved in issuing permits for the HRBD have promised that movement of hazardous wastes will not occur when Hank Marsh Junior High is in session.
  • The BCAQMD has always been the most protective agency of the public’s health throughout the seven years of concentrated activity to clean the HRBD. While the RWQCB scoffed at the community’s concerns of hazardous dust emissions, even when the Health Risk Assessment demonstrated that the Monster Cleanup would cause blood lead levels to rise (EMKO 16), the BCAQMD conducted research and quietly implemented significant controls in their permits to curtail dust emissions.

Remaining Areas of Concern

  • Developers Fogarty and Drake want to place housing on some of their remediated land. No other city or county, to BEC’s knowledge, has knowingly allowed housing on a former burn dump. The public will have the chance to comment in writing and before the Chico Planning Commission and City Council in the months ahead.
  • The City, to date, intends to move all its waste west of Bruce Road to the City’s property east of Bruce creating greater opportunity for dust emissions and accidents. The City Council race could affect the choices the City makes next year when they start work on their land.
  • A safer, viable cleanup alternative that also happens to be less expensive was never vetted because developers insist on pursuing housing on their property. Since the City does not wish to do that with their land, it may be possible to implement a cap in place cleanup, but again, this hinges on the City Council race this fall.
  • The City of Chico bought some private land to assist particular landowners with their cleanup responsibility, thereby inheriting the liability of their waste. There may not be a chance to alter this outcome except by the method of cleanup. The residents of Stilson Canyon do not have an alternative route to and from their homes if needed. The simplest way is through Lazy S Lane to Picholine. Pressure on Chico’s staff and Council could alter this situation.

Reference

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA) sets a secondary standard of 500 mg/l TDS [salts] in drinking water (www.epa.gov/safewater/mcl.html). Secondary standards are unenforceable, but recommended, guidelines for contaminants that may cause cosmetic or aesthetic effects in drinking water. High TDS concentrations can produce laxative effects and can give an unpleasant mineral taste to water.

From the Summer 2004 issue of the Environmental News.