Like Yogi Berra once said, “It’s like deja vu all over again.”
Residents of 13th Street in Seal Beach were alarmed on Monday when they noticed some brown fluid bursting though the middle of the road near the adjacent Chevron Station on Pacific Coast Highway. It was not that long ago that neighbors a few blocks away near the local ARCO station had to deal with contamination from gas leaks.
According to Anthony Martinez, a spokesman for Orange County Environmental Health Care Agency, the fluid near the Chevron station is thought to be related to hydrogen peroxide that has been pumped into the station’s gas tanks.
Martinez said the agency had a work plan with Exxon Mobil, which owns Chevron, to do summer mediation of the 13th Street gas station.
The hydrogen peroxide is used to neutralize benzene and other chemicals that build up in the tanks and turn them into harmless fluids.
“They had been injecting it for about a week,” he said. “Then the material started to bubble up and push out onto the street and flow down he gutters and toward the storm drain. Apparently it is brown looking. It had color in it and obviously wasn’t just plain water that was noticed coming from the street.”
The city has shut down the entrance from Pacific Coast Highway onto and out of 13th Street by car.
Martinez said there is still contamination in the middle of 13th Street that needs to be cleaned up.
“We have a work plan for 45 to 60 days,” Martinez said. “There is no deadline for completing the clean up. They have to make sure they have some reasonable success of achieving that goal.
Thirteenth Street residents and neighbors gathered along the sidewalks near the gas staion and peppered health agency representatives with questions and concerns about the situation on Monday.
They said they were worried that the situation could become similar to what happened a few years ago when the nearby ARCO gas station was found to be leaking gas into the soil near surrounding homes in the Bridgeport neighborhood near PCH and Fifth Street.
The ARCO station was ultimately demolished in 2011 and the contaminated dirt had to be dug out.
Like Yogi Berra once said, “It’s like deja vu all over again.”
Residents of 13th Street in Seal Beach were alarmed on Monday when they noticed some brown fluid bursting though the middle of the road near the adjacent Chevron Station on Pacific Coast Highway. It was not that long ago that neighbors a few blocks away near the local ARCO station had to deal with contamination from gas leaks.
According to Anthony Martinez, a spokesman for Orange County Environmental Health Care Agency, the fluid near the Chevron station is thought to be related to hydrogen peroxide that has been pumped into the station’s gas tanks.
Martinez said the agency had a work plan with Exxon Mobil, which owns Chevron, to do summer mediation of the 13th Street gas station.
The hydrogen peroxide is used to neutralize benzene and other chemicals that build up in the tanks and turn them into harmless fluids.
“They had been injecting it for about a week,” he said. “Then the material started to bubble up and push out onto the street and flow down he gutters and toward the storm drain. Apparently it is brown looking. It had color in it and obviously wasn’t just plain water that was noticed coming from the street.”
The city has shut down the entrance from Pacific Coast Highway onto and out of 13th Street by car.
Martinez said there is still contamination in the middle of 13th Street that needs to be cleaned up.
“We have a work plan for 45 to 60 days,” Martinez said. “There is no deadline for completing the clean up. They have to make sure they have some reasonable success of achieving that goal.
Thirteenth Street residents and neighbors gathered along the sidewalks near the gas staion and peppered health agency representatives with questions and concerns about the situation on Monday.
They said they were worried that the situation could become similar to what happened a few years ago when the nearby ARCO gas station was found to be leaking gas into the soil near surrounding homes in the Bridgeport neighborhood near PCH and Fifth Street.
The ARCO station was ultimately demolished in 2011 and the contaminated dirt had to be dug out.
