Soil

Residents of six duplexes near Chinatown were briefed Wednesday on soil testing for hazardous chemicals around their homes by the Los Angeles city Housing Authority and a state environmental agency. According to housing authority Executive Director Don Smith, a letter from a former resident led to the discovery of an early 1900s oil refinery and storage tanks constructed on the property where the William Mead Homes now stand. The Southern Refining Co. and the Amalgamated Oil Co.

Preparations for a controversial project to place more than 30,000 truckloads of dirt from the Warner Ridge development on the Pierce College farm are well under way, but the actual soil transfer may not begin until next month, the developer said Monday. "The big machines probably won't hit until the first week in November," said Jack Spound of Warner Ridge Associates.

Gov. George Deukmejian has signed legislation authorizing a study of the corrosive soil conditions that have caused housing foundations to deteriorate in La Palma, Cypress and Lakewood. The bill was nearly identical to one vetoed by the governor last year. Assemblywoman Doris Allen (R-Cypress), who sponsored the bill, credited Deukmejian's turnaround to a campaign of phone calls and letters by affected residents.

Responding to residents' concerns, federal toxic waste inspectors began a fresh round of soil testing this week at an abandoned dump site in Santa Fe Springs. A project manager for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said the tests are intended to update data recorded as early as 1989, as well as expand the sample area across the 43-acre site near Los Nietos Road and Greenleaf Avenue.

Despite protests from neighbors, Los Angeles Community College District trustees Wednesday approved the removal of 30,000 truckloads of dirt from the Warner Ridge development to the Pierce College farm in exchange for $2.1 million for the cash-needy school.

Plans to build a 14- to 16-screen cinema complex and retail space near the city's main shopping center have hit a snag. Officials have discovered that the land on which the $25-million to $30-million project is to be built is contaminated with lead, pushing back the project by at least a year. Ruben Lopez, the city's deputy director of redevelopment, said officials hope to begin cleanup this summer. He added that negotiations to acquire the 21-acre parcel from ARCO and World Oil Corp.

Bromeliads are hardy plants; some species don't even need soil. But they are native to humid climates, so it's a bit surprising that one of the largest collections of bromeliads in the world is in Gardena, where partners Paul Isley and Jerry Robinson claim to have 500 species on a two-acre spread. A Santa Monica native who now lives in Manhattan Beach, the brown-haired Isley, 39, retains the look of a youthful surfer.

I enjoyed your article (In the Garden, June 22) on watering potted plants. I had heard some of the advice before but forgot. Thanks for the reminders. I have used LGM all-purpose, all-organic potting soil for planting and germinating seeds and starting cuttings. It is the best I have used. Have you tried it? What do you think of it? --MIKE TULLIUS Rosemead, via e-mail Editor's note: Times Garden Editor Robert Smaus says perhaps he was thinking of vacationing in Holland when he mistakenly called a potting soil KLM, the name of the Dutch airline.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will sample soil from the back yards of 14 homes in an unincorporated area near Torrance to search for possible chemical contamination, agency officials said Tuesday. The EPA wants to make sure that contaminants have not migrated from the nearby Del Amo industrial area, which had a rubber manufacturing plant from the mid-1940s to the early 1970s. The area is now a proposed Superfund cleanup site.

Nearly 13 years after it was banned, the potent pesticide DDT persists in soils throughout the state, and detectable--but reportedly safe--levels are continuing to show up in vegetables, the state Department of Food and Agriculture said Monday.