BRENTWOOD’S TOXIC GRAVE
Tillman has failed to respond to requests for an interview, but with the federal government finally embarking on a long-delayed $1-million testing phase, Dr. Bennett Ramberg, a longtime critic of the government’s handling of the historic dump, says, “We’re in the more definitive phase and yet, once again, the questionable zones at the site appear to be ignored by the testers. If you’re going to spend $1 million in these tight times, you have got to get it right.”
Tillman has previously insisted that the soils are safe. U.S. Rep. Henry Waxman of Los Angeles says, “I am pleased that they are taking this additional step, and I will be monitoring the situation closely.”
A controversial $4 billion Bush Administration plan to develop the property, opposed by many Angelenos because the land is located in one of Southern California’s most congested and overbuilt areas, collapsed in 2007 in part because of its surprisingly troubled history.
On September 22, 2007, Jay Halpern, special assistant to the VA secretary, told concerned residents at a community meeting that one obstacle to developing luxury condos and businesses on the massive property was “the issue around the radiation of Barrington Park.”
Halpern said questions about whether radiation problems exist on the site were addressed in a Phase One report, but added, “Now we enter the Phase Two study to ensure that there is absolutely nothing underneath there.”
But Ramberg, one of several critics of the two-year delay before the Phase Two study began late this year, says, “How is the public supposed to rely on the conclusions of the Phase Two study when the VA appears to have prejudged the outcome?”
Although the testing site, which is fenced with “Do Not Enter” signs, is not easily visible downslope from the Brentwood Recreation Center, it is in full view of the adjacent MacArthur Field to the east. The land was used to dump biomedical nuclear and chemical waste from 1948 to 1968 by the VA and nearby UCLA.
According to UCLA archival documents, the buried items include barrels of radioactive tritium, chemical lab wastes, and carcasses of animals killed in medical experiments.
Nobody knows if the land is safe. Last February, an unidentified man inspecting the site with a member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission stated, “This is just perfect for the media. You build a dog park over a nuclear dump. People care more about dogs than people, but people are walking on it!”
VA and UCLA documents also show that hazardous chemicals, including toluene and dioxane, are buried under the soil. According to VA records of 1960 to 1968, wastes were tossed or poured into the site by deposit into unlined trenches and holes. For the first 12 haphazard years, no records were kept.
But in a 2006 interview, Ben K. Spivey, then chief of occupational health and safety at the VA, said that a mound of plant-covered debris, roughly near the center of the historic dump, marks an area where biomedical waste was deposited — after being excavated from land now beneath the exclusive, adjacent Brentwood School.
Some residents and parents were worried after Phase One results by a testing contractor found potential problems near and on Brentwood School land and the arroyos, or washes, that run along the western edge of the VA’s land.
