Environmentalists and residents in Escondido attended a City Council meeting Wednesday evening in hopes of slowing down a proposed housing project near the Chatham Brothers Barrel Yard, a notorious hazardous waste cleanup site whose toxic plume has spread southward.
Heidi Whitman, who lives directly across the street from the project site, is spearheading efforts to have the city do more to find out whether it's safe to build housing on the site.
“Our biggest point is we’re not trying to stop housing development,” she said. “We’re asking that the environmental review match the complexity of this site.”
The project would turn a long-vacant 6-acre lot on the southeast corner of Hamilton Lane and Bernardo Avenue into five single-family homes and a stormwater basin. It's located less than a mile south of the barrel yard. Lee Duran, who serves on various boards and commissions in San Diego County, including San Diego Coastkeeper, is the property owner pursuing the project.
The Escondido Planning Commission approved the project earlier this year in a 4-1 vote. Whitman is formally appealing the Planning Commission’s approval before the City Council.
At Wednesday's public hearing, the City Council considered whether to approve Whitman's appeal.
Duran and his project team ultimately stated to council members that groundwater remediation has significantly decreased contamination beyond the barrel yard and, therefore, believe there is no impact to shallow groundwater beneath the land where the houses would be built. Whitman argued that because there has been no monitoring on the property for years and some surrounding wells have shown slight increases in contamination levels, more needs to be studied on the site first.
The discussions, however, turned too technical for some council members. They unanimously agreed to table their vote to a future date. Mayor Dane White suggested Whitman, Duran and city staff meet "and see where we could find maybe a little bit more common ground and refine the process."
In 1982, the state became aware of toxic pollution, such as trichloroethylene and benzene, leaking into the soil and groundwater. By the 1990s, soil was removed, contaminated areas were covered, and a soil‑vapor extraction system was installed, according to the state Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC), which oversees remediation. The yard opened in the early 1940s and operated as a waste oil and solvent recycling and bulk petroleum facility.
State officials have said cleanup efforts through the years have helped, though "contamination remains above cleanup goals," said DTSC spokesperson Elizabeth Leslie Gassaway.
"Contamination has moved roughly 1.25 miles southeast from the Chatham Brothers Barrel Yard Site and has reached Felicita Park and nearby homes," she added. "The most recent sampling results from the monitoring wells showed concentrations below the detection limit for most site contaminants."
A report by Scott Snyder, the hydrogeologist hired by concerned residents, said slight increases over the past five years show the plume "is not stable or decreasing."
"These data indicate the contaminant plume is not stable, and while some wells in the project area do not contain contaminants at or above laboratory reporting limits, it is clear that it is difficult to detect contaminants in the groundwater in this fractured bedrock aquifer unless wells are located where fractures containing the contaminants are," he said in his July 24 report.
Dan Weis, who Duran hired as the project’s environmental consultant, said the increases in volatile organic compounds (VOCs) concentrations detected as early as last year are “unremarkable” and are below “the drinking water standards.”
The levels directly beneath the project site are unknown because there has been no monitoring on the site for years. Weis said a monitoring well that sat on the project site was removed by a former landowner several years ago. He acknowledged that, historically, concentrations of groundwater contaminants in that on-site well were “pretty high. They were in the several thousands of micrograms per liter.”
Acknowledging residents' and environmentalists’ concerns, he said groundwater testing is not the landlord’s responsibility.
“That's a Chatham Brothers issue. It's Chatham Brothers’ contamination,” Weis said.
Weis tested soil at a two-foot depth and soil vapor at a five-foot depth on the property after Whitman submitted her appeal.
“There were no contaminants of concern identified in the soil,” said Weis. “We kind of expected that going into it as far as the shallow soil gas, and there were no detected concentrations of volatile organic compounds.”
At the City Council meeting, Weis said that any VOCs detected in deeper groundwater are hydraulically separated from the ground surface by shallow groundwater, preventing soil vapor from moving to the ground surface.
On Thursday, Gassaway said DTSC has not evaluated or made any determinations regarding the proposed development. DTSC involvement is not required to review every project, though it typically does for some school constructions or properties under cleanup orders. She added that Duran has not reached out to the state agency to review or evaluate the project.
Duran told council members, "I would never ever propose a project that may create a hazard to the environment or to the residents."
Whitman, the Sierra Club San Diego North County Group and the Escondido Neighbors United argue that the city and property owner conduct a geotechnical study before construction is approved.
“I’m going to be, hopefully, starting a family here soon,” said Whitman. “And that is one of the concerns that I have, is, you know, health and safety with VOCs. And that is exactly why we're arguing for full transparency before soil is dug up.”
Should the City Council reject Whitman's appeal and move the project forward, Duran would still need to secure permits before any construction could begin. The city did not provide a date for the future vote.
