TOXIC CHEMICAL CLEANUP COMING FOR PART OF THE WESTSIDE BLUFFS
For several years, the CM PRESS has been calling on sitting City Councils to do something about the pollution that we know exists on the Westside bluffs.
We know there's pollution there because we know a thing or two about various industrial processes and industrial businesses.
Past City Councils haven't done anything about the pollution except try to ignore our calls to do something. To get one prior Council's attention we even wore a gas mask to a City Council meeting and went to the podium wearing it. Chuckles all around. Nothing was done. That was before a couple of kids died of odd brain cancers on the Westside that some believe are linked to toxic chemicals. Still, the Council did nothing.
One way by which past Councils tried to blow us off was by saying that the AQMD didn't find any problems. In fact, Linda Dixon said the same thing about the AQMD just a few City Council meetings ago and she told citizens to call the AQMD if they smelled anything out of the ordinary.
This was not good advice. The AQMD is the wrong agency. They are primarily set up to test for tail-pipe emmissions from cars and trucks. We've repeatedly told the Council this.
And, the main way the AQMD treats calls about odd odors is to send a staff member to the area to drive around with the windows of his car down to see if he smells anything. We kid you not.
Since the bluffs are under almost constant ocean breezes, chemicals in the air that people may smell quickly blow away from the source and over the rest of the city that is downwind. So, by the time an AQMD staff member is on site, the odors have gone with the wind. Maybe they're over your house in Mesa Verde or Mesa del Mar or any of the other neighborhoods down wind. Maybe they're raining carcinogens down on you and your kids...right now.
In addition, the human nose can't smell many toxic chemicals. If your dog could talk, he'd probably scare the heck out of you if he told you about the nasty things he smells in our air.
The next thing a prior City Council did to try to shut us up was have the Costa Mesa Fire Department do a study of pollution on the Westside.
This was absurd. When the CMFD presented their report, one of the first things in it was a disclaimer saying that the CMFD doesn't have the expertise in this area, but that they prepared the report anyway because the Council had asked them to do so. The report was a waste of time.
Then, during the last election campaign, we asked candidate Bruce Garlich, at a candidates forum at the Senior Center, what he would do about the pollution on the bluffs if he were elected. We thought that was a good question since he was being supported by the industrialists on the Westside bluffs. Garlich got red faced and loudly proclaimed with great certainty to the whole room that there was no pollution on the Westside bluffs.
Now, dear readers, with all the denials about pollution, did you start to doubt the CM PRESS? Did you think maybe we were off on a tangent of some sort? Did you wonder why we didn't drop the issue but kept rocking the boat?
If so, please take a gander at page 5 of today's (Wed. 4/25/07) Daily Pilot. There, you'll see a paid notice by the California State Department of Toxic Substances Control about a toxic cleanup that has been proposed for a 6.8 acre parcel at 1640 Monrovia--on the Westside bluffs.
It seems the topsoil is contaminated and will have to be trucked away and replaced. According to the notice, the main toxic chemical is perchloroethylene (PCE). Here's a link to PCE: http://www.dhs.ca.gov/ohb/HESIS/perc.htm
There's going to be a public meeting about the cleanup on May 9, 2007 starting at 6:00 p.m. in the City Council Chambers at City Hall. The DTSC encourages all to attend.
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Those are our opinions. Thanks for reading them.
