EPA Says Casmalia Dump May Pose Health Threat : Environment: Memo belies assurances that closed hazardous waste site is not dangerous. Agency downplays new concerns.

FRESNO —  The Casmalia hazardous waste landfill in northern Santa Barbara County could pose a serious threat to public health and welfare unless more money is spent on maintenance, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says in a memo circulated Tuesday.

The landfill near Vandenberg Air Force Base was a major dumping ground for Southern California’s toxic wastes before it was closed six years ago after bitter community protest.

Ever since, the EPA has taken pains to assure the small town of Casmalia and surrounding communities that the landfill poses no future harm to the air and drinking water.

But a recent EPA memo requesting $4 million in emergency funds to further stabilize the site describes a much more ominous scenario. As many as 7 million drums of toxic wastes are deteriorating beneath the ground and are in danger of leaking, the document said.

Heavy winter rains saturating the 250-acre dump have put the area’s drinking water at risk and increased the chance of deadly cyanide gases escaping into the air, according to the May 26 memo by Jeffrey Zelikson, an EPA division director.

“The [mixing] of incompatible wastes could result in uncontrolled chemical reactions, fire and explosions,” Zelikson wrote to a higher-level EPA administrator.

Casmalia residents and environmental activists who distributed the memo held it up Tuesday as proof of an EPA cover-up of the risks. They pointed out that a recent agency newsletter assured residents that the concentration and mixing of contaminants had not increased substantially.

“If you look at the agency’s public comments to the community and compare them to this internal memo, it’s pretty clear they’ve been hiding some serious stuff from us,” said Dr. Daniel DuCoffe, a Santa Maria physician who in the 1980s treated a number of patients with illnesses linked to the dump.

But EPA officials at regional headquarters in San Francisco responded Tuesday that the environmental and public health risks outlined in the memo were a worst-case scenario.

“There is no subterfuge on our part. No secrets,” said Michael Feeley, the EPA’s regional facilities branch chief. “There is no immediate risk if we continue to get funding and remain on site. If we’re not on site, then the risk becomes immediate.”

For the 16 years that it operated, the Casmalia Resources landfill accepted 447 million gallons of waste generated by Southern California industries and businesses. Trucks carrying heavy metals, pesticides, oil field waste, infectious waste and cyanide were so numerous that they caused traffic jams on the narrow roads outside Casmalia, population 175.

The air became so foul that the town’s one school was closed for several days. Doctors reported a dramatic rise in illnesses--from headaches to cancer. In one six-year span at the height of the dumping, three residents contracted rare blood diseases and eight pregnant women either miscarried or had stillborn babies.

“They were spraying waste 10 feet in the air and it was blowing right into town,” said DuCoffe, who moved his family to Arroyo Grande to escape the hazards. “One day, 600 school kids in Orcutt got sick and had to go home.”

Casmalia became the center of an environmental firestorm. Residents and activists accused the state of ignoring evidence of illnesses and giving the owner of the dump, Kenneth Hunter Jr. of Montecito, too much slack.

After state and federal authorities agreed to shut down the site in 1989, Hunter declared that he did not have the money for a major cleanup. An EPA emergency team, operating on a small budget, moved in to stabilize the landfill until a permanent solution could be found.

In the past four years, the agency has spent $9 million pumping and treating contaminated ground water and ensuring that toxic plumes do not contaminate a larger aquifer. The EPA is seeking $4 million to continue that maintenance effort.

The agency also is negotiating with 50 large companies, which generated much of the waste, to fund a comprehensive cleanup.

“We did not go in there with the idea of solving the problem,” Feeley said. “We went in there to maintain the current situation and make sure things didn’t get worse. And we’ve done that.”

Ken Vaniter, a 30-year resident of Casmalia who has read the EPA memo describing the potential for a cyanide cloud, isn’t so sure. “It reminds me of the guy sitting in a gas chamber waiting for the poison to hit,” he said.