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…