The Seal Beach City Council Monday approved a nearly $1 million agreement with BP/ARCO for extra costs the city incurred when a sewer construction project ran into soil contaminated by a nearby gas station.
The city and BP/ARCO were able to “quickly and amicably” determine which costs were the normal construction obligation of Seal Beach and how much extra money should be paid by BP/ARCO to remove the contaminated soil, said a city news release.
The $945,000 clean up cost would have been a significant expense, the release said, if Seal Beach had had to pay it from its $26 million annual budget.
Mayor David Sloan emphasized the importance of the staff’s high-quality project management in reaching the agreement.
“Especially, I’d like to compliment our City Engineering staff and especially Associate Civil Engineer David Spitz. With these projects, the devil’s in the details…Because of their can-do attitudes and meticulous record-keeping, the city was able to quite clearly make its case to BP/ARCO”.
A separate soil contamination problem near a different Seal Beach ARCO station forced the temporary evacuation of three homes last winter. The city and ARCO are at odds over clean-up costs and procedures.
And BP/ARCO is a subsidiary of BP, which is responsible for the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.