UPDATE: City Presses Forward to Open Chatsworth Park South

The city’s Recreation and Parks Commission voted unanimously on Wednesday to extend a contract with a company assigned to research clean up of the contaminated soil at shuttered Chatsworth Park South.

A one-year extension with Nevada-based URS Corp. was needed so the company’s environmental research, planning, impact assessment, regulatory compliance and management services could go forward with reopening the park, according to a Commission report.

The contract expires in 2012.

The 3-0 vote allocates $100,000 to Chatsworth Park South, a popular local attraction closed nearly four years ago, according to city officials.

Final approval, however, rests with the mayor and the Los Angeles City Council.

The Department of Recreation and Parks does not have personnel or expertise to handle the project in a timely manner and contends it is more feasible and economical to use an outside contractor.

Los Angeles City Councilman Mitchell Englander, then chief of staff to retired Councilman Greig Smith, ordered Chatsworth Park South closed on Feb. 14, 2008, but is still attempting to get the acreage reopened.

There have been six cost estimates, ranging from $1.5 million to $7.5 million, for the park cleanup, Englander said last month.

Chatsworth Park South, an 80-acre green space located at the western end of Devonshire Street, was contaminated by clay pigeon targets and lead shotgun pellets shot at .

Currently, the city is drafting a remedial action work plan for the Chatsworth Park South Lead Remediation Project under the purview of the Department of Recreation and Parks. It takes many years to complete the process, city officials said on Wednesday.

Once the contract extension is approved by the City Council and mayor, city officials can go forward with a contamination work plan, apply for toxic cleanup grants, dip into the city’s hazardous cleanup funds and begin the clean-up process.