2000 Accomplishments and Priorities

Department of Toxic Substances Control

The Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) regulates hazardous waste facilities and oversees the cleanup of hazardous waste sites in California. Protection of public health and the environment is the focus of all DTSC programs, and the Department's permitting, site cleanup, pollution prevention, environmental technology certification, public participation and education activities are driven by this commitment.

Accomplishments during First Half of 2000

1. Children’s Environmental Health Initiative. In response to new legislation that requires Environmental Assessments of all proposed school sites, DTSC established a School Property Evaluation and Cleanup Division dedicated to fulfilling this mandate. During the reporting period, 266 Phase I documents and 10 Preliminary Endangerment Assessments submitted by the California Department of Education on behalf of various school districts were reviewed by DTSC, and determinations of safety were made for two existing schools that are located adjacent to landfills, Towne Avenue Elementary School and John H. Francis Polytechnic High School in Los Angeles County. In addition, a new environmental oversight agreement exclusively for school districts was developed by DTSC and is being implemented.

2. State Superfund Sites. Among the most notable accomplishments for the state Superfund Program during the reporting period were:

   • Southern Pacific (now Union Pacific) Railroad-Sacramento Rail Yard. DTSC has approved soil cleanup plans within four study areas of the site, which is slated for future mixed-use development. Remedial activities are underway to remove and dispose of 100,000 cubic yards of soil contaminated with a variety of contaminants.

   • Ontario Ventures. A consent order with Ontario Ventures I, the new owners of 600 acres of the former Kaiser Steel site in Fontana, was signed, covering the portion of this Brownfields site that remains to be cleaned up after the California Speedway was built. Plans for the property include construction of a large full-service truck plaza and a rail-served industrial park.

   • University of California, Riverside. A revised remedial design was approved for the University of California, Riverside, pesticide pits site. A contractor was hired to implement the new remedial design by first excavating and disposing of the buried pesticide containers, then treating the soil with low temperature thermal desorption.

3. Unexploded Ordnance (UXO) Workshop. DTSC sponsored an UXO workshop in Sacramento on April 6. Experts from the military, private sector, citizen groups and local governments from throughout the country offered their perspectives on state-of-the-art detection and cleanup. There was a consensus that the limitations of current technology are such that additional measures and advanced technologies should be used to minimize residual risk. Since California has hundreds of sites where there is a suspected or known UXO threat, this topic is a high priority for DTSC.

4. Enforcement Initiatives. DTSC has strengthened the enforcement component of its regulatory program through the establishment of the Complex Enforcement Team (CET). CET was established with 21 positions located in regional offices throughout the state. The CET's primary responsibilities will be to reduce enforcement backlogs, work with environmental taskforces and support multi-media, multi-agency initiatives being developed by Cal/EPA.

5. Naturally Occurring Asbestos. DTSC is coordinating activities with other state and federal agencies to address the issue of naturally occurring asbestos. DTSC provided guidance on legal and technical requirements to El Dorado County on the removal of soil containing asbestos from a residential neighborhood in El Dorado Hills. With funding from U.S. EPA, DTSC has developed a bulk-materials/soil sampling workplan to identify the primary sources of airborne asbestos in the Garden Valley community. The sampling will be conducted in the summer of 2000.

6. Military Base Remediation. DTSC and the U.S. Navy entered into a Memorandum of Understanding regarding land use controls, ending a longstanding disagreement about the state's role in this aspect of cleanup. The agreement acknowledges that where cleanup levels are such that hazardous substances will be left behind at concentrations greater than is safe for unrestricted uses, restrictive covenants will be made part of the cleanup remedy to limit future uses. In April, DTSC was invited to an awards ceremony at the Pentagon to receive the Installation Cleanup Award from the Chief of Naval Operations.

7. Oil Refinery Initiative. The newly created Oil Refinery Team completed inspections at 21 petroleum refineries, including 10 joint DTSC/U.S. EPA inspections. The Oil Refinery Team is currently pursuing or evaluating enforcement cases at three of the inspected oil refineries.

8. Brownfields Redevelopment. DTSC is recognized nationally for its leadership and innovation in the environmental cleanup and reuse of Brownfields. There are several significant Brownfields projects under development that have major economic, employment, and environmental benefits. These include:

   • IKEA (Emeryville). This Swedish furniture importer/retail store opened its doors in April on the former Barbary Coast Steel site. DTSC had entered into a prospective purchaser agreement with IKEA for the property that allowed them to open their first retail store in Northern California. It is expected to generate $70 million in annual sales and create 250-300 jobs at this 6-acre store.

   • Ryland Homes (Mountain View). DTSC entered into a prospective purchaser agreement with Ryland Homes that will allow development of 62 housing units on this former industrial site in Mountain View. The development will generate $300,000 per year in new property taxes and will provide partial local funding for a school in the area.

   • Pepper Lane (San Jose). DTSC entered into a prospective purchaser agreement with a developer to construct a commercial industrial park on this former industrial site in San Jose. The development will generate about $110,000 additional property tax revenues per year and will create approximately 200 new jobs.

   • Aliso Street Towne Gas Plant (Los Angeles). The cleanup of a 1.4-acre parcel of the former Aliso Street Towne Gas Plant site in downtown Los Angeles was completed. The cleanup involved excavation and removal of over 45,000 tons of contaminated soil, underground gasholder bases, and abandoned pipes.

9. Emergency Response Program. Emergency removal actions were completed at 1,118 illegal drug labs and 50 other non-drug lab related sites during the first six months of 2000. In addition, DTSC’s work continued at the Gibson facility in Bakersfield through an agreement with 40 responsible parties to take over work to close and clean up this site, including removal of hazardous liquids from large facility storage tanks to abate the public health and environmental threat posed by leaking tanks.

10. Multimedia Monitoring. DTSC completed the first analysis of polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) in wildlife and human tissues. These data will allow comparisons with body burdens from other countries, as well as analysis of trends in California, and expand DTSC’s capability to provide data needed for multimedia risk assessment.

Priorities for Second Half of 2000

1. Implementation of Urban Cleanup Initiative (Brownfields). DTSC will have major responsibilities for drafting policies and procedures to implement the Governor's Urban Cleanup Initiative (Brownfields). The 2000-01 State Budget contains $85 million in new funding for investigation and cleanup of contaminated properties throughout the state. The funds will be used to provide financial assistance to landowners and developers to determine the condition of known or suspected contaminated properties and to clean up contaminated sites. During the first six months of fiscal year 2000/01, DTSC will provide support to Cal/EPA by developing the loan component of the program which will include developing criteria for awarding, preparing and distributing the loan application packages, and publicizing the program.

2. California-Mexico Border Pollution Initiatives. DTSC will allocate new resources to provide additional hazardous waste management training to representatives of industry and government in the border region, develop more comprehensive educational materials, establish bilingual capacity for the complaint hotline, add more inspectors to handle border inspections and related enforcement actions, improve coordination and technical assistance with Mexican officials, and promote pollution prevention.

3. Hazardous Waste Manifesting. DTSC plans to complete its alternative procurement process in October and to select a contractor to build the state’s new Hazardous Waste Tracking System. One of the features of the new system will allow for the electronic submittal of manifest data via the Internet. This will represent DTSC’s first project under the governor’s e-Government initiative.

4. Expanded Enforcement of Environmental Laws. Using new positions approved by the Legislature to restore a portion of the environmental enforcement positions cut by the previous administration, DTSC will investigate and prosecute more environmental crimes, conduct more frequent facility inspections, aggressively pursue enforcement actions, provide additional laboratory resources to facilitate the collection of analytical evidence in support of enforcement actions, and provide inspectors and investigators with improved technological capabilities to enhance enforcement efforts.

5. Pollution Prevention. Pursuant to Senate Bill 1916 (Statutes of 1998), DTSC established an external advisory committee to further the goal of hazardous pollution prevention. With the committee’s input and consultation, DTSC has developed a two-year workplan for the pollution prevention program that involves the petroleum industry and the vehicle repair and maintenance industry. The plan was released for public review in May, with final approval of the plan expected by the end of the summer. Work will commence with the two industry sectors in July.

6. Financial Responsibility of Hazardous Waste Facilities. DTSC will evaluate the financial assurance instruments used by regulated entities to verify adequate coverage for third party liability, closure, and post-closure of hazardous waste facilities. DTSC plans to look at emerging financial issues associated with hazardous waste facilities, including the use of captive insurance policies. An information management system will be developed to assist with financial mechanism analyses, aid in the evaluation of trends in financial assurance, and enable DTSC to publish the total value of all financial assurance instruments under its control at any point in time. In addition, DTSC will be using the state-of-the-art systems to improve its ability to estimate closure costs for land disposal, treatment, and storage facilities and provide long term environmental protection.

7. Internet Web Site. DTSC will complete the first phase of its new Web site in the second half of 2000 with features that will allow the public and regulated community to obtain expanded information on hazardous waste sites, initiatives, accomplishments, and resources.

8. Analogous Project 2000. DTSC, in conjunction with the U.S. EPA Corrective Action Program, is conducting the Analogous Review, an environmental compliance audit of over 130 RCRA treatment, storage, and disposal facilities in California that are subject to RCRA corrective action. The audit formerly assessed corrective action progress at deferred facilities based on successful completion of RCRA equivalent milestones that were overseen by the DTSC and the Regional Water Quality Control Boards. There are 99 deferred RCRA facilities requiring assessment before December.

9. Universal Waste Regulations. DTSC intends to public notice regulations for the treatment, handling and disposal of universal wastes, which include mercury-containing thermostats, batteries, florescent tubes and other lighting wastes. The goal of the regulations is to ensure greater environmental protection by imposing new requirements on the disposal of these wastes at authorized hazardous waste disposal or recycling facilities. The regulations will replace emergency regulations adopted in January.

10. Data Auditing. In the second half of 2000, DTSC will begin an expanded program of auditing data from permitted facilities and potentially responsible parties. New software will be used to develop Data Quality Objectives and to assess the adequacy of data from hazardous waste facilities and sites in service to better monitor activities and protect public health and the environment.

Back to Report of Accomplishments & Priorities