CALIFORNIA IN BRIEF : SANTA YNEZ : State Cool to Bid for Leak-Cleanup Grant

The state Water Resources Control Board gave a cool reception to a request by Santa Barbara County that it pay most of the cost of cleaning up an airport where leaky tanks polluted underground water. The county’s public works director, Marlene Demery, asked the board for an outright grant of $292,326 to cover most of the estimated $350,000 needed to clean up aquifers under an airport for private planes at Santa Ynez, 20 miles northwest of Santa Barbara. The airport is county-owned, but is leased to private operators. Leakage of aircraft fuel from two of its underground storage tanks has sunk 90 feet into an underground aquifer about a mile from a well that supplies drinking water to some rural residents of the area.