Foothills Sentry August 2023

Foothills Sentry Page 8 August 2023 Plans to infill riparian area near Santiago Creek subject of workshop Chandler LLC’s bid to fill in an abandoned mine pit -- now a thriv- ing riparian area within 100 feet of a drinking water recharge basin -- with construction waste will be the topic of a workshop hosted by Santa Ana Regional Water Qual- ity Control Board. The workshop is Aug. 17 in the Orange City Council chambers. Chandler has asked the Water Board for a permit to fill in the depression, adjacent to Santiago Creek to bring it up to street level. The water board has received hundreds of public comments opposing the project and has postponed a scheduled hearing on the topic indefinitely. The public is invited to attend the workshop, which will cover the Water Board’s waste discharge requirements and associated environmental documents. Public comments are welcome, but speakers are asked to sign up in advance. Chandler owns 14 acres near the northwest corner of Cannon Street and Santiago Canyon Road, and already has a permit to backfill the site from the city and approvals from FEMA and Fish and Wildlife. The water board permit is the last box Chandler needs to check. Chandler’s plan is to bury the site under 1,240,000 cubic yards of dirt. The project will depend on 60 truck trips per day for five years. Chandler has not dis- closed what it intends to do with the property once it is leveled. The workshop will convene at 5:30 p.m. Notices with additional details are being sent to everyone who submitted a comment letter. State agency increases oversight of illegal dumpsite in East Orange By Tina Richards Motorists driving down San- tiago Canyon Road, past the looming mounds of construction waste known as the Sully-Miller site, and neighbors of the inescap- able eyesore, may wonder if any- thing is happening to alleviate the blight and reclaim the land. The answer is no. And yes. While there is little physical ac- tivity to speak of, landowner Mi- lan Capital has, for the last year, been negotiating with the Local Enforcement Agency (LEA) over a soil testing and cleanup plan. A citizens’ appeal filed with CalRe- cycle over perceived shortcom- ings in the original Stipulated Notice and Order between Milan and LEA was denied last month, but Milan has been put on notice that the state is now paying close attention to the once all-but-ig- nored landfill. The new blip on the state’s radar is a result of the persistent legal legwork of three East Orange residents. Kim Plehn, Bonnie Robinson and Dru Whitefeather have been pushing local and state agencies since 2019 to remedy the results of Milan’s illegal dumping on the site. Call for action They started with the City of Orange, but got nowhere. Orange had allowed the unpermitted, un- reported dumping of construction waste on the property since 2014, about the same time Milan’s pro- posal for a 130-unit housing tract was rejected by the city council. The city allowed the property owner to dump dirt and debris on the site, assuring neighbors that the activity was “infill” and that it would simply bring the terrain up to street level. The dumping, however, went far beyond street level. No records were kept of what was being deposited, or where in the landfill truckloads of who- knows-what ended up. The City of Orange looked the other way. Fed up, Kim Plehn contacted the LEA in January 2020. The agency was unaware that the site was an active landfill, as its permit had not been renewed when it expired in 2014. Several subsequent site inspections identified contaminated material in the mix and LEA issued a cease and desist order. Combat, not cooperation A series of legal battles and negotiations ensued, culminating in the June 16, 2022 Stipulated Notice and Order. The notice required Milan to conduct analytical testing of the grade level soil, geotechnical testing to determine the boundaries of the waste, and analytical testing of the stockpiles. The requirements, however, did not include the entire site. Plehn, Robinson and White- feather held that the notice and order should pertain to the entire site, not just a portion of it. They appealed as “Orange Citizens” to the LEA in September 2022, and lost. They then appealed to CalRecycle the following month. CalRecycle upheld LEA’s Stipu- lated Notice and rejected the ap- peal on June 30. Meanwhile, LEA was tightening the reins on Milan’s testing proposals. The first work plan Milan submitted was rejected as non-acceptable; the second plan was “agreeable,” but contingent on a number of conditions. The scope of the work increased from about 30 acres to 67. “We essentially got what we wanted,” Whitefeather says. “They’ll be testing a larger portion of the site and doing it more thoroughly with a lot of oversight. We got the state’s attention.” Getting down to details Among the conditions LEA has levied include an accurate site map of where the test borings will be made; a methane gas survey must be done after the soil sampling is complete; and if groundwater is encountered, it too must be tested. Borings must be conducted at 5-ft. intervals. Samples must be collected from the surface, interior and bottom of the stockpile. Subsurface samples should be collected down to native soil. Material deemed to be uncontaminated cannot be moved to another site without a workplan submitted to LEA for review. If hazardous materials, such as methane and asbestos, are found, a clean-up plan will be required. Because the composition of the material in the landfill is un- known, LEAwill not approve the material for any other use at this time. During the negotiations regarding soil and geotechnical sampling, Milan told LEA that the site would ultimately be used be for recreational purposes only. Testing criteria, therefore, was based on non-commercial or non-residential use only. LEA stipulated that if the stockpile material was intended for com- mercial or residential develop- ment elsewhere, or if portions of the property were to be desig- nated for commercial or residen- tial use in the future, LEA must be informed, and additional as- sessment and sampling may be required. In May, Milan submitted an application to the City of Orange to build 200 units on 15 acres of the site. LEA has since been no- tified by Orange Citizens.