WALNUT CREEK — A “toxic plume” at a gas station on Mt. Diablo Boulevard has contaminated the neighborhood’s air and soil, according to a February legal complaint filed by the former owner of an eco-friendly dry cleaning business next door.
The complaint claims that regional environmental agencies failed to hold oil companies accountable for remediating their land for decades, and that the environmental viability of future, transit-oriented development eyed for plaintiff Steve Depper’s property is now threatened. But Depper said the defendants, Marathon Petroleum Corporation and Tesoro Refining & Marketing Company, who have both owned the property, are ultimately responsible.
The now-75-year-old Depper opened up Dutch Girl Cleaners in 2002, branching off from his family’s third-generation business to offer greener cleaning solutions less than a mile west of downtown Walnut Creek, located near the junction of Interstate 680 and Highway 24.
“I’m very cautious about exposing my employees — obviously that’s why I’m all green,” Depper said in an interview Friday. “Rather than coming up with a new engineering solution, which I understand is readily available, (Marathon and Tesoro) decided to just leave that big mound of highly contaminated soil in place and cover it up. It’s still there today, and it’s not going away.”
Despite listing 16 separate claims against various subsidiaries, Depper’s complaint has one main request for the petroleum corporations — uphold statutory, contractual agreements to retain responsibility for remediation.
Put more simply: move the toxic dirt.
Post-retirement, Depper has crafted plans to redevelop that site into Dutch Girl Plaza, a mixed-use residential and commercial development, including 75 residential units that incorporate low-income housing and daycare services.
But he recounted numerous fruitless attempts to get the petroleum corporations to clean up carcinogenic petroleum byproducts that have leached out of underground storage tanks and onto the land he bought in Dec. 1999 — a problem, he said, that started more than a decade prior.
If he cannot ensure that the toxic plume is remediated and removed before construction crews get onsite, Depper’s complaint said that hazard may halt future development indefinitely, if not permanently.
The gas station at the heart of the complaint, Speedway Express, was owned by subsidiaries of Tesoro until it that company was acquired by Marathon in 2018.
Depper’s complaint alleges that a “continuous and uncontrolled release of carcinogenic chemicals” has migrated to and contaminated his property. Marathon and Tesoro, he claims, have botched past remediation attempts, and ignored his ongoing concerns.
The complaint says noxious fumes and groundwater contamination associated with the gas station’s toxic, chemical-laden soil “poses public safety risks to occupants, employees, and customers of Dutch Girl Cleaners,” as well as neighboring businesses and local water.
“What really bothers me is we don’t really know how far this contamination is extended — is it safe? I can’t answer that,” Depper said, explaining that he hasn’t gotten clear answers about the plume’s vertical and horizontal migration, pointing to school and daycare sites near the gas station. “Marathon is not interested in assisting us to move forward as a city — as a community.”
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The Dutch Girl Property was historically zoned for commercial use. That changed in September 2018, when the city of Walnut Creek adopted the “West Downtown Specific Plan,” which rezoned the area for mixed residential and commercial use.
By 2019, one phase of that specific plan envisioned a “BART Block” on Mt. Diablo Boulevard — where high-density, transit-oriented projects would be built within walking and driving distance to the Walnut Creek BART Station.
Brian Danitz, partner at Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy, said Depper’s efforts to serve and improve his community are being “upended by the callous disregard” of the oil giants.
“It is outrageous that Marathon Oil would allow this contamination to seep through his property and continue to endanger not only the health and welfare of those who live and work there, but also the future of the development of that area for housing and other purposes that are sorely needed by Walnut Creek,” Danitz said over the phone Friday. “It is antithetical to Mr. Depper’s understanding of what it means to be a good citizen and what it means to provide services to Walnut Creek.”
Attempts to reach San Francisco-based legal counsel for Marathon Petroleum Corporation and Tesoro Refining & Marketing Company for comment were unsuccessful by Friday evening, as were requests to the oil giants’ respective corporate offices.
In October, a Martinez refinery operated by Tesoro was fined $5 million for air-quality violations over a four-year period. The Bay Area Air Quality Management District announced 59 violations at the refinery from 2018 to 2022 for “improperly flared vapors from storage tanks and loading racks,” among other penalties — reportedly the second-largest assessment in the district’s history.
Danitz said Depper’s repeated attempts to contact and speak to the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board about the contamination abutting Dutch Girl Cleaner’s property have “not taken care of the problem.”
“Ultimately,” Danitz said, “he felt he had to take things into his own hands, and felt he was forced to bring this lawsuit to clean up this mess.”
