Local News in Brief : Wells to Check Pollution
Mobil Oil Corp. will drill eight more wells near its Torrance oil refinery to determine how far underground contamination has spread.
State water officials in March ordered the cleanup of a huge plume of gasoline seeping underground from the refinery to properties in the city’s adjacent Industrial Redevelopment Project.
The City Council agreed this week to permit the company to drill three of the wells on city streets, in addition to seven wells that have already been drilled on streets and public property. Five other new wells will be drilled on private land.
Previous borings have shown contamination as much as 1,200 feet southeast of the refinery’s storage tanks at Van Ness Avenue and Del Amo Boulevard. The gasoline was found in a shallow aquifer, not the deeper Silverado aquifer, which supplies drinking water to several South Bay cities.
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