Council to consider spending roughly $240K for removal
Editor’s note: This story is part of an ongoing series that tracks the city’s expenditures appearing on upcoming Santa Monica City Council consent agendas. Consent agenda items are routinely passed by the City Council with little or no discussion from elected officials or the public. However, many of the items have been part of public discussion in the past.
CITY HALL — Before the Annenberg Community Beach Club is open to Santa Monica’s sunbathers and swimmers next year, there’s the matter of cleaning up a cancer-causing material.
The City Council tonight will be asked to appropriate $242,000 to remove asbestos and lead-containing materials at the former Marion Davies Estate, part of an approximately $5.3 million spending package.
Once the beachside home of Hollywood starlet Marion Davies, a gift received from newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst during the 1930s, the five-acre property at 415 Pacific Coast Highway is currently being rehabilitated into a public beach club.
The 110-room mansion was sold in 1945 and operated as a luxury hotel until the late 1950s, after which point the mansion was demolished and the rest of the property was used as a private beach club called “Sand and Sea Club.” City Hall opened the facility as a public beach club until it was put out of commission following the 1994 Northridge Earthquake.
The Annenberg Foundation in 2004 awarded a $27.5 million grant for the rehabilitation and adaptive reuse.
It was during the course of rehabilitation of the pool, parking lot and north house that revealed the contamination. Midwest Environmental Control Inc. was already contracted to perform asbestos abatement. The council will be asked to extend the existing contract with the company by $242,745 to perform the additional abatement work at the pool, parking lot and north house. The total amount includes a roughly $22,000 contingency fee.
Charnock Well Field after a leak of methyl tertiary-butyl ether (MTBE), a chemical usually added to motor gasoline, was discovered from underground storage tanks and pipes owned by several oil companies.
Since the wells were shut down, the Metropolitan Water District (MWD) has supplied most of the local drinking water, with about 20 percent coming from other local groundwater wells owned by City Hall. The MWD water is blended with local well water and treated through the Arcadia Water Treatment Plant before it is distributed.
The new treatment facility and the upgrade at the Arcadia Water Treatment Plant will be funded through a settlement agreement reached with liable oil companies.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on February 26, 2008. Read the original PDF.