Chevron pays for Bakersfield cleanup

BAKERSFIELD
April 3, 2006 1:01pm

Chevron U.S.A. has agreed to pay the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency $113,495 to reimburse federal cleanup costs at the San Joaquin Drum Facility in Bakersfield as well as assist the California Department of Toxic Substances Control with additional cleanup at the site, the EPA says.

A former agricultural truck wash located at 3930 Gilmore Ave., the San Joaquin Drum Co. site has been vacant since the company left California in 1986.

The EPA coordinated with Chevron to remove two abandoned underground storage tanks and associated pipes that contributed to pesticide and toxic metals contamination at the site, the agency says.

“Once the EPA identified the underground sources, Chevron U.S.A. stepped up to help remove them,” says Dan Meer of the EPA’s Emergency Response Planning and Assessment office in San Francisco, in a written statement.

Although Chevron did not own or operate the site, underground storage tanks at the site contained product that belonged to Chevron, the EPA notes.

Chevron removed steel pipes, two storage tanks and 856 tons of soil contaminated with arsenic, DDT and chlorinated materials, the agency says.

Under federal law (the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act) Chevron could be held responsible for the contamination, the EPA says.

San Joaquin Drum Company, a drum reconditioning facility, was operated from 1969 to 1976.

“Soil samples collected at the site indicated that the soil present at the facility contained hazardous levels of lead, chromium, and zinc, as well as hazardous levels of pesticides such as dichloro- diphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) and its breakdown products DDE and DDD,” according to the California Department of Toxic Substances Control. “Chlordane was also found in extremely hazardous levels.”

There are 15 to 20 municipal drinking water supply wells within a three mile radius of the site. The proximity of these wells to the site present the potential for a public health hazard stemming from movement of contaminants into the ground water aquifer, the state says.