Ron Miller of American Tubing, left, and Rob Wise of the EPA inspect a piece of scrap metal. Miller is removing uncontaminated scrap metal from the site.

A Gardena-based company cut up the last bits of usable uncontaminated scrap metal at the old Halaco Engineering plant in Oxnard on Tuesday as the Environmental Protection Agency prepared to dig under the plant to look for illegally buried hazardous, and possibly radioactive, waste.

Ron Miller of American Tubing, surveyed the crews piling up hunks of iron they'd hacked into transportable sizes. Miller said he'd haul the scrap out by today.

Meanwhile, an EPA contractor with a gamma radiation detector was scanning the concrete pad nearby. EPA plans to start digging up an almost football-field-sized portion of the concrete pad on Thursday, said Rob Wise, the on-scene manager of the EPA's emergency response team.

Wise is investigating the accuracy of a report by a former employee that the company buried some of its waste under the concrete construction yard.

The work this week comes as the EPA considers including the Halaco facility on its list of Superfund cleanup sites. The company opened the magnesium and aluminium recycling plant at Ormond Beach in 1965. Over four decades the company amassed a 28-acre pile of slag that rises 40 feet above the adjacent wetlands. The pile of waste is laden with hazardous levels of metals and radio-nuclides.

The EPA recently regraded and covered the waste pile, giving the agency time to figure out what to do with it. Now federal officials are figuring out what do with the old buildings and smelter facility on the 11 acres next to the waste pile.

Halaco declared bankruptcy in 2004 and last year began liquidating its assets. A bankruptcy trustee sold the 28 acres last year for about $2.5 million. And earlier this year, a bankruptcy trustee auctioned off the sundry metal boxes, furnaces, tools, forklifts and loaders that remained at the plant. In addition, the city of Oxnard recently condemned the buildings, giving the owners until July 7 to raze them.

But the order is complicated by the bankruptcy case and the issue of who controls the property. The land development company, Alpha Omega, purchased the property the waste pile is on. It also holds the lease for the land where the plant stands. The former owners of Halaco have recently sued the company, saying Alpha Omega is responsible for tearing down the structures, according to EPA officials.

But if the buildings, which have huge rusting gaps in them and are buckling in spots, are not torn down by the deadline, the EPA will likely step in and do the work. The agency has already set aside almost $1 million for the job, Wise said.

For his part, Miller paid $52,000 for scrap metal in the plant. But soon after he bought it, the EPA discovered that much of the plant was also contaminated.

Low-level radiation detected in several of the shipping containers prevented Miller from selling them for reuse. Miller said he was still unsure how much iron he'd been able to salvage from the plant.

Carl Palladino, a contractor for the EPA scanning the site with a gamma detector, noted Tuesday several spots where the radiation level was significantly above background.

"We'll have to see if the level is higher the deeper you go," he said.

Palladino noted that merely detecting elevated levels of radiation doesn't indicate the material is hazardous. A more detailed survey of the material will be needed to determine the risks.

When Miller made his winning bid on the material he'd estimated there were from 1,000 to 2,000 tons of usable iron. Recycled iron fetches about $200 a ton, with much of it going to companies in China, India and Taiwan.

As of this week, Miller estimated he'd gathered only about 400 tons. He may still be allowed to come back and cut up two rather large pieces.

"For me it's about weight," said Miller. "This wasn't what I thought it was going to be, but I think we're going to be all right."