By Toxic cleanup means long wait to develop former gas station sites

Photo by Joe Hu, Town Crier

By Bruce Barton and Linda Taaffe

Town Crier Staff Writers

Los Altos is built out, you say? Curiously, there remain four high-profile corner lots, the sites of abandoned service stations, that, to uninformed passers-by, look as if the land was left to rot. Two of the sites are at important intersections marking the north and south entrances to downtown. This is open space we don’t want, detractors say as they look on the conglomeration of weeds and fenced enclosures on three of the four properties that contain some mysterious apparatus. Just what is going on, people ask, and why have these sites remained unchanged for so many years?

“They look like hell,” said Ron Labetich, a downtown commercial real estate broker who would like to see the city of Los Altos or the Los Altos Chamber of Commerce lobby for beautification efforts. Labetich would especially like to see improvements to the site at San Antonio Road and First Street, across from the Gateway Building. “They (property owners) could put some landscaping there,” he said.

Julie Rose, executive director of the chamber of commerce, said questions about the old service station properties come up “all the time. Nobody’s going to disagree that these sites are unsightly.” However, Rose said an organized effort to change matters has yet to take shape. For now, it’s just “idle talk,” she said.

Still, some do feel the properties are not an urgent matter.

“None of these sites are eyesores and there is no significant economic impact on our downtown businesses,” said Councilman King Lear, “nor is there any significant impact on city sales tax revenues. Fortunately, the service stations are not sited inside a contiguous shopping area such that the vacant lots are a very visible gap for window shoppers.”

The First-and-San Antonio property, currently owned by Chevron Corp., is undergoing water and soil decontamination, said Chris Tulloch, a senior water quality specialist with the Santa Clara Valley Water District. The district has had the responsibility for monitoring cleanup of county sites since 1987, following the 1985 passage of the state regulations eliminating underground storage tank contamination. The law dictated that service station companies were responsible for decontaminating their properties after removal of the underground storage tanks.

Tulloch indicated there is no end in sight to the cleanup efforts at the 470 S. San Antonio Road site, which first got under way in November 1999. The old Chevron station was demolished in August 1998.

“It’s an aggressive cleanup,” she said. “They’ve removed several hundred pounds of petroleum hydrocarbons.”

The problem, Tulloch said, is that service stations had been operating at the property since at least 1948. This leaves Chevron, which purchased the property in 1991, with extensive cleanup work.

Within the fenced enclosures are machines that extract soil vapors and treat contaminated water. The length of any cleanup, Tulloch said, depends on soil types, the depth of the ground water, and what types of remediation techniques are used. Some cleanups can take as long as 10 years, she said.

However, Councilman Lou Becker estimated cleanup could be completed in another year. “I anticipate that this property will then be sold for commercial development,” he said. “I would like to see a portion of the triangular end dedicated to the city for attractive landscaping to enhance the entry point.”

Chevron representative Mark Lafferty, in charge of the 470 S. San Antonio property, said “We’ve made outstanding progress,” but noted there is no timeline for cleanup completion or sale of the property.

“We do have a lot of sites that do redevelopment while the process is ongoing,” Tulloch said. “We will not stop anybody from doing development.”

However, gas companies are not in a position to sell the properties for development while cleanup is still ongoing. In addition, observers see the idea of building around the decontamination machines on relatively small sites as a ridiculous proposition.

Heading north on San Antonio to the Main Street intersection is another corner site that has remained dormant for at least 10 years, said Los Altos Councilwoman Kris Casto. The remnants of the Shell service station that occupied the property are long gone, so cleanup is not an issue. But property owner Helen Wang said she has no current plans to develop the property.

“Most of the time, I’m overseas,” said Wang, reached at her home in China last week. “The city has a lot of requirements. It’s very time consuming (to develop property). I might wait until I stay in the States more time.”

Wang said she presented an office/retail project to the city of Los Altos a few years ago, but she proposed two-thirds retail to one-third office space on the ground floor. The city requires all retail on the ground floor.

Wang, who purchased the property for approximately $500,000 five years ago, said she would be willing to sell if she received “a good price” for the property. “My architect said it is not worth the time to deal with the city,” she said.

“This space could be developed for commercial/office,” Becker said. “I would also like to see a part of this triangular property dedicated to the city for landscaping to enhance this entry point.” Wang said she is not interested in landscaping the property.

Farther north on San Antonio is the former Unocal/Union 76 service station site, 895 N. San Antonio Road, at the corner of San Antonio and Sherwood Avenue. Cleanup work at this site has been ongoing since 1992, Tulloch said. Contractors for the Union Oil Company are currently performing soil vapor extraction.

“Nothing can be done to this lot until the cleanup is complete,” Becker said. “I anticipate about one more year of work will be required.”

The fourth property, located at Fremont Avenue and Grant Road, is nearing the end of its cleanup process, Tulloch said. The district has been monitoring the cleanup since May 1999, under the current owner, listed under Skyline 21 of San Francisco. The service station closed in October 1998 when the city council refused to issue a new permit in the wake of some neighborhood opposition. According to a notice posted at 1287 Fremont Ave., a blower is being used to withdraw soil vapors from 60 feet below the ground surface. Project completion is targeted for the end of July.

“The property at Fremont and Grant has been approved for residential development (two lots),” said Becker, who anticipates another year before any new development can take place.

“It’s a little frustrating that it takes so long to clean them up,” offered Councilwoman Kris Casto. “There’s development potential (at the downtown sites). The one across from City Hall (Main and San Antonio), they can do office or retail. It’s part of the parking plaza so there wouldn’t be any parking requirements.”

Prior to cleanup regulations, old service stations were replaced with other developments and sites were left contaminated.

“Most gas stations are likely to be contaminated,” said Kyle Yamasaki of the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition. “Contamination could easily spread to other properties. If there’s a leak, it spreads down the street. If the ground water is contaminated, local wells nearby will probably be contaminated.

“A gas station by itself may not be that dangerous, but when you add others, you worry about the cumulative toxins and their effects.”

He said that some toxins push up from the soil and can manifest themselves into homes. This was the case at Moffett Field with a toxin called Trichloroethylene (TCE).