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EPA tells public to avoid former Halaco property
Officials say surrounding areas safe
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More from HalacoThe Environmental Protection Agency is delivering a message to anyone thinking about dropping by Halaco, the former metals recycling company in south Oxnard: "Stay out."
"There is no risk to the public as long as they remain off the Halaco property," the agency said in a flier being mailed to community residents.
Over the next few months, the agency plans to contact neighbors to warn them about the risks posed by going onto the property, said Francisco Arcuate, a spokesman for the EPA in Los Angeles.
Notices will be sent in both English and Spanish to people living in the area, warning them to stay away from the old plant.
The EPA's outreach coincides with the work of researchers from the California Department of Health Services.
A team of state scientists was in the area last week making initial contacts for a health study that will determine if pollution from the plant, which operated from 1965 to 2004, has contributed to any health problems, ranging from cancer to asthma.
Beyond that long-term study, the EPA is continuing its work to determine whether the plant and its adjacent 28-acre waste pile should be included on a list of Superfund hazardous waste cleanup sites.
While that work goes on, the EPA and the property owners are trying to keep people out.
There have been several incidents of trespassing, and crews working at the site have caught a few youths riding their bikes over the massive slag pile there, but the old plant is unsafe.
Rob Wise, on-scene manager for the EPA emergency response team, said trespassers will be prosecuted if caught and warned parents that their children risk injury playing around the condemned buildings.
Along with the heavy metals in the waste pile, crews recently discovered low-level radioactive waste buried under a concrete pad next to the smelter buildings that covered an area about the size of a football field.
The agency's preliminary measurements found radiation levels from two to 100 times natural background levels. Crews took about 75 samples to determine the exact makeup of the waste and how it should be handled.
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