Caltrans’ tar tale

After more than two years of news stories and paying for two cleanups, Caltrans has finally removed the black tar ooze from a pre-modern era concrete retaining wall along Highway 128 just 40 feet from the Navarro River.

This newspaper literally exposed the mess attached to the front of the old concrete structure in our first story printed in summer 2012.

State regulators, responding to California Public Records Act requests for comment from this newspaper, had to use GPS devices to find the wall among dense brush back then. The low, west end of it is just 10 feet from the roadway, about 100 yards east of the intersection of Highway 1 and Highway 128, on the east (mountain) side of the road.

A huge tank dispensed tar for blacktopping from atop the wall from the 1950s to 1970s. This kind of practice was common at the time but became strictly illegal due to emerging environmental regulations and concerns.

This newspaper's investigation printed in a half dozen stories over the past two years, exposed (after initial denial) that Caltrans had originally proposed to remove the entire wall structure as part of a $1.5 million guardrail replacing and enhancing project for a still planned nearby upgrade on Highway 128 but pulled the cleanup out of the project, baffling regulators at the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board. The two projects are now separate.

Phil Frisbie Jr.

"Just to be clear, this cleanup work was never part of, or within the project area, of the guardrail project. The guardrail project is scheduled to go out to bid this spring and to construction this summer," said Frisbie.

Second cleanup seems to be working

A three-day cleanup in November, a year after the first, botched cleanup, filled three 20-cubic-yard disposal bins (about 26 tons of waste). Cleaned up by workers wearing protective and hazmat suits, it was transported under a non-hazardous waste manifest to the Potrero Hill Class II Landfill facility located in Suisun.

"The asphalt emulsion oil (tar) ranging in thickness from 1 to 4 feet was removed from behind the retaining wall using a 60-pound electric jack hammer and hand tools. The asphalt emulsion oil was removed to exposed native soil. The removed asphalt emulsion oil and associated soil and debris was then placed in the Bobcat bucket and transferred to the disposal bins," Geocon Consultants, the company that did both cleanups, wrote to Caltrans.

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Caltrans' tar tale