Focus on historic district; effect on businesses unknown

The California Department of Toxic Substances Control has issued two remedial action orders for properties in the historic Benicia Arsenal district.

The orders were issued last month by Charlie Ridenour, branch chief of the cleanup program of DTSC’s Brownfields and Environmental Restoration Program. They were received by the city June 27.

However, City Attorney Heather McLaughlin was called away on a family emergency, and was unable to provide her office’s customary update July 1 on the investigation into any toxic waste remaining after the Army closed the Arsenal in 1964.

A remedial action order requires a property owner to work with the city and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to find and identify contaminants and clean them up, or find some other remedy so they pose no threat to community health.

One of the orders focuses on multiple parcels on Tyler, Lincoln and Jackson streets, identified collectively as Historic Arsenal Park, represented by Gordon Potter.

Among the addresses are those identified with Benicia Youth Soccer League, a photographer’s studio, a former event planning company, an arborist, a spa, artist and dance studios and business offices.

The second order specifically addresses 711 and 750 Jackson St., in the southernmost area of the Arsenal. These parcels are identified as being owned by Benicia International Associates, represented by Marc Jacuzzi.

Also named as responding parties are the city of Benicia and the Army Corps of Engineers.

McLaughlin said Monday the orders were “about what we expected,” though she had anticipated seeing drafts before the final orders were imposed. She said city staff is examining them and looking at what compliance might cost.

Discussions during the city’s debate on a Specific Plan for the Lower Arsenal in recent years sparked interest in determining whether any Army-related toxins or ordnance remained in that area.

The City Council considered in November 2009 and voted again in February 2010 to ask federal, state and county representatives to prod the California Environmental Protection Agency (Cal-EPA) to find and clean up any remaining contaminants in the Arsenal, particularly the Lower Arsenal.

The examination and cleanup had been pushed by Bencia resident Marilyn Bardet, who spoke frequently at Council meetings about her concerns for remaining chemicals and ordnance in the former military weapons site, and even submitted a draft of a resolution for the panel to consider.

Bardet urged the Council to seek congressional and legislative support to get the DTSC to lead the search for hazards in the Arsenal, and said she hoped the state agency could compel the Department of Defense and the Army Corps of Engineers to finance the cleanup.

Later in 2010, however, the Council was stunned to learn that DTSC had written a draft Imminent and Substantial Endangerment Order that was strict enough to block new construction in the Arsenal from being occupied.

By 2011, the Council hired Environmental Risk Services, a Walnut Creek consortium, as the city’s representative in the matter. City officials learned that the Army refused to be responsible for any chemicals found in the Arsenal, since the Army Corps of Engineers had determined the district was clean. Army representatives said found chemicals may have been introduced after the weapons site was closed in 1964. Department of Defense officials told the city that federal funds for cleanup had been spent in Nevada.

By May 2012, most Arsenal property owners were relieved to hear Ridenour say that the DTSC had removed much of the district from its Hazardous Waste and Substances Site List, also called the Cortese List. The Cortese list is a planning document used by state and local agencies as well as developers to comply with California Environmental Quality Act requirements in providing information about the locations of hazardous materials release sites.

Ridenour wrote the city, saying some properties that had been identified by the Army Corps of Engineers as having “releases that require response actions.” But he and McLaughlin said most properties would not be impacted.

“We’ve come a long way from potential DTSC orders for a big chunk of the former Army Arsenal base to approximately three sites in the lower Arsenal,” Mayor Elizabeth Patterson said Monday.

“We have learned a lot since the original draft Environmental Impact Report (EIR) for the Specific Plan for the Lower Arsenal sparked DTSC to ramp up its enforcement of known legacy pollution. It appears DTSC listened to the city, its team and to the stakeholders in the Arsenal. The state has focused on the area that may have soil and water pollution mainly from activities by the U.S. Army.

“Our team is reconvening to discuss and understand the orders and the next steps. We are alerting the stakeholders for a future meeting,” Patterson said.

In the Historic Arsenal Park (HAP) section, the DTSC contended, the Army began a variety of operations in 1876 that included cleaning and repair of small arms with metal treatments and using the site as a small arms test range.

Onsite underground fuel tanks stored petroleum products, the report said, and it had boilers and forges as well.

Aerial photographs of the Arsenal during its history showed 300 buildings, two motor pools, NIKE missile repair plants, an explosive holding area, and a network of 109 munitions storage sites called igloos.

Regarding the Benicia International Associates property on Jackson Street, the DTSC report said the Army began using the site in 1945 for vehicle repairs, and used gas-fired boilers. It used the site for sand blasting, painting and metal processing dipping tanks for caustic, rinse, pickle, oil bath and degreaser treatments.

Onsite underground fuel tanks stored petroleum products for vehicles and boilers, and under the Army’s ownership the sewer and storm drains discharged domestic and industrial wastes without treatment directly into the Carquinez Strait.

After Benicia bought the property from the Army in 1964, it sold and leased parcels to various industries, and during some of that time contaminants still flowed into the strait without treatment, the DTSC report said.

Benicia International Associates is considered a responding party because it has owned the Jackson Street parcels since August 1995. Until 1981, the BIA building was used for office space, storage, and as a manufacturing plant for aluminum wheels for automobiles, though the company, International Manufacturing, ceased production some years ago, the report said.

The report described the BIA property as being on the west end of Jackson Street, bounded by some residential property on Military East and East Seventh Street to the north and west and a paved parking area for imported vehicle storage on the south.

It contains the former Army Building 165, a 40,000-square-foot structure; Building 90; and Building 156. The land is about 500 yards north of the strait, with a large parking area between the buildings and Bayshore Road.

In both locations for which it issued orders, the DTSC found that “action is necessary at the site because there has been a release and/or there is a threatened release of a hazardous substance,” and that there may be “an imminent and/or substantial endangerment to the public health or welfare or to the environment because of the release and/or the threatened release of the hazardous substances.”

The orders require appropriate removal actions, completion of a remedial investigation and feasibility study (RI/FS), preparation of a remedial action plan (RAP) or removal action work plan (RAW), preparation of CEQA documents and design and implementation of the remedial actions approved in either the action plan or work plan.

The current property owners, the city and the Army Corps of Engineers need to undertake removal actions, the report said, based on discoveries found by the remedial investigation or feasibility study.

Those responsible had 15 days from five days after the order’s June 24 issuance to select a project coordinator and send a notice of intent to comply. They must pick a project engineer and geologist and submit a communication and coordination plan within 30 days of the June 29 effective date.

They are expected to have a site remediation strategy meeting with DTSC within 35 days from the effective date. Monthly summary reports must be submitted starting within 45 days of the order.

The RI/FS work plan is due within 60 days of the site remediation strategy meeting, and multiple other studies and reports are due as scheduled by the work plan, or as requested by the DTSC.

Final remedial action or removal action plans must be approved by DTSC, and those trigger deadlines for other actions, including the current property owners’ signing a land use covenant.

Other documents, from CEQA information to various fact sheets samples and reports, are due at DTSC’s request.

Failure to comply could cost each respondent up to $25,000 a day in penalties, though DTSC also could impose punitive damages of up to three times the amount of any costs incurred by department should a respondent fail to comply.

“It is too early to speculate on what impact these orders have on the affected property owners, the Army and the city and what our choices will be,” Patterson said.

“Because we have worked hard to have a transparent and open process, and because we have demonstrated good faith to DTSC, I believe that to the extent possible they will work with us to clarify the steps we need to take. At the end of the day, the uncertainty we have lived with for so long is coming to an end and this will be positive for the future of the Lower Arsenal.”