San Diego Union Tribune: Toxic woes fester at Camp Pendleton

Toxic woes fester at Camp Pendleton

Cleanup efforts praised; years of more work ahead
By Rick Rogers
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

November 22, 2005

Contaminated drinking water is the latest environmental problem plaguing Camp Pendleton, which has so many toxic waste sites that it was declared a public health threat more than a decade ago.

The 125,000-acre base – the last large chunk of mostly undeveloped land between Los Angeles and the U.S.-Mexico border – is an environmental contradiction. Bald eagles soar over the site and steelhead trout swim in its waters. But the area is also home to plumes of solvents, pockets of pesticides and trenches of petrochemicals.

Some of the trouble is decades old, to times before anyone realized the dangers of burying, burning or dumping hazardous materials. Others are more recent, such as Camp Pendleton's difficulties with dangerously high levels of lead and copper in its tap water.

Even a well-intentioned project has now become an environmental headache. A liner for a base landfill that opened in 1999 has leaked radioactive runoff, according to documents from the San Diego Regional Water Quality Control Board. The liner threatens to leak again during the rainy season.

It will cost more than $250 million and take a decade to fully assess all of Camp Pendleton's pollution concerns, the Environmental Protection Agency estimates. The dollar figure does not include expenses for actual cleanup and bills related to at least one lawsuit alleging that toxin-laced dust made a Marine's daughter sick.

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