24 properties affected by agency’s cleanup mandate
BENICIA’S ARSENAL was a major military installation for more than 100 years.
File photo
The orders, the state’s decision that any toxic substances must be found and dealt with, became effective June 29.
That date is the start of a calendar of deadlines that property owners, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the city of Benicia will need to meet to avoid fines of $25,000 a day and the potential of other penalties.
“Certainly these orders will require time and energy both from the property owners and the city,” Giuliani said Monday, “and to the extent that time is pulled from their business operations will affect economic development efforts.”
City Attorney Heather McLaughlin is the city’s project manager for the case, since Benicia is considered a respondent in the two orders, as are the Army Corps of Engineers and two named property owners: Historic Arsenal Park, represented by Gordon Potter, and Benicia International Associates, represented by Rodolfo and Marc Jacuzzi.
The Army is considered a responsible party, the orders said, because it owned and operated the Arsenal for about 115 years.
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 such metal treatments as acid, solvent and caustic baths, degreasing, painting and applying anti-corrosion treatments to small arms weapons, electroplating and incineration.
In addition, the site was used 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 from the mid-20th century showed 300 buildings, two motor pools, NIKE missile repair plants, an explosives holding area and a network of 109 munitions storage sites called igloos.
“When the Army owned and operated the site, both the sewer and storm drain systems discharged domestic and industrial wastes without treatment directly to the Carquinez Strait,” the DTSC order said.
The city of Benicia is a respondent in the case because it is a former owner of the land and drains, the DTSC order said.
Benicia bought the Arsenal for $6 million after it closed in 1964, and Benicia Industries, a private developer, financed the buy in exchange for a 66-year master lease to develop and operate Arsenal properties as an industrial park.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Army delegated to the Army Corps of Engineers the investigation and remediation of remaining toxic waste, from ordnance to chemical weapons to substances used in the manufacture and maintenance of weapons, vehicles and other supplies.
“The city bought the HAP property in 1965 and subsequently parceled, leased and sold them for use by various industries,” the order said. The land is bound by Jackson, Lincoln and Polk streets, and includes the former Army 50 series complex and Building 120.
It’s about 200 yards north of the Strait, from which it is separated by a large parking area and Bayshore Road, and primarily is office and commercial space.
Groundwater can be as shallow as 10 feet or less below the surface, and the report said it’s contaminated with volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that later can become a vapor intrusion risk.
During the city’s ownership, sewer and storm drains also poured contaminants into the Carquinez Strait.
Benicia modified and diverted the sewer outfall — but not the storm drains — in 1969 and 1970, but as late as 2004 trichloroethylene (TCE) and its breakdown products still were released into the strait’s waters.
HAP itself is a respondent, based on ownership and operations, since it bought or leased property from Benicia after the Army left. The buildings were used for office space and commercial rentals through 1981, the report said.
An earlier Army report indicated that there was “evidence of beneficial reuse of the parkerizing (anti-corrosive treatment) vats and former machine shop, but the DTSC findings are that “beneficial use” of former Department of Defense land is defined as use by subsequent landowners or lessors in a manner that would either mask contamination caused by DoD or continue contamination in the same way.
Again, waste fluids were disposed into existing sewer systems that discharged into the strait until 1970, the document said.
In 1998, the USACE began the first of several investigations of the Arsenal in compliance with the Defense and State Memorandum of Agreement with California, which let the state comment, but not oversee, remedial activities at the Arsenal.
Among its actions, the Army Corps of Engineers removed several underground storage tanks, but didn’t bother owners who were “beneficially” reusing the Arsenal’s features or were adding to the area’s contamination.
The Corps’s expanded site investigation, dated September 2005, concluded that the 50 series complex and Building 120 appeared to be the TCE sources that could be attributed to Army activities. The investigation also found lead contamination of soil south of Building 58A.
TCE also apparently was carried by city-owned sewer and storm drains, according to a Dec. 7, 2004 letter from Brown and Caldwell, an engineering company with offices in Walnut Creek.
Building 50 had many tanks for weapons parkerizing, and TCE may have been used as a degreasing solvent, Brown and Caldwell said. In addition, Building 120 was used for electroplating, using copper, nickel, cadmium, chromium and cyanide.
The site investigation documents reported not only TCE but also cis-1,2 Dichloroethene (1,2 DCE) at or near the Building 50 series, as well as the release of lead to soil and groundwater in the area.
The Brown and Caldwell report concluded that groundwater had been contaminated with VOCs, TCE, 1,2 DCE and vinyl chloride, particularly along the west wall of Building 57 and the east side of Building 120. These toxins had migrated offsite to the area’s lowlands to the south and southeast.
Heavy concentrations of lead in soil south of Building 58 also was found.
The DTSC orders issued last month apply to properties listed by address as 938, 940, 942, 945, 946, 952 and 954 Tyler St.; 963, 965, 967, 969, 971, 973, 977, 979, 981, 983, 985, 989 and 991 Lincoln St.; and 900 and 954 Jackson St. in Historical Arsenal Park. Benicia International Associates’ properties are 711 and 750 Jackson St.
The two orders were sent by Charlie Ridenour, branch chief of the cleanup program of DTSC’s Brownfields and Environmental Restoration Program, who visited Benicia several times.
He attended public meetings at which property owners repeatedly asked the state agency to specify which parcels were expected to have been contaminated by the Army, which opened the Benicia Arsenal in 1849 as a military weapons site.
Among the addresses is one for Benicia Youth Soccer, 985 Lincoln St. But Peter Fiori, president, said the league doesn’t own the site. “We rent it,” he said.
However, Fiori also hadn’t heard about the order. “We have not been informed of anything,” he said Tuesday.
Among other affected studios are the Dailey Method Studio, 991 Lincoln St.; Susie Harper School of Dance, 954 Jackson St.; and Benicia Ballet, 938 Tyler St.
Also cited were addresses of commercial businesses that ranged from resellers to tree consultants. Some of the listed addresses have lost or changed tenants, and others did not respond to requests for comment.
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Sounds like a real mess. Unfortunately, these scenarios take years and years to deal with. Especially when you have many different owners and entities involved. Perhaps Valero could provide the funding to clean the area up in exchange for the rail project.
I suspect the the CSC will provide the funding to clean this mess up. That is a joke. Maybe even the mayor can get the Army to do its job or of course the tax payers. This is a mess and should be cleaned up at once. This is how a Mayor shows leadership rather than kicking it down the road. Unless this is cleaned up at once with a very clear plan the city is at risk of not attracting or retaining business in that area. it is a mess and it appears the mayor was never any help. The city must move quickly. I do believe they will without any input by the lame duck mayor.