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'State d lays Unocal cision Board orders water-quality monitoring for one year By Tim Nickles Record Staff Writer State officials Thursday put off for a year a deci- sion on whether an oil company will be allowed to walk away from a former gas-station site on Pacific Avenue that San Joaquin County officials say still poses a groundwater-pollution threat. Unocal had asked the State Water Resources Control Board to overrule San Joaquin County's Environmental Health Division and allow it to close the property at 1665 Pacific Ave.with no fur- ther cleanup work. F County officials say groundwater below the property still contains_}ugh levels_of_benzene,_a cancer-causing che-n–Mill, and other compounds — all leaked into the soil from fuel tanks that were removed in 1988. They worry the pollution could contaminate nearby drinking-water wells, and they want Unocal to begin comprehensive monitoring and cleanup. Unocal says it's spent more than a decade and $300,000 trying to remove the pollution. The board, appointed by the governor to over- see water rights and water-quality issues, directed Unocal to continue groundwater monitoring for a year to see if the pollution breaks down through a natural process known as bioremediation. "They're just going to sit on it for a while;" state board spokesman Robert Miller said. San Joaquin County Deputy District Attorney David Imy, who filed a $13 million lawsuit against Unocal and another oil company earlier this month for failing to clean up groundwater pollu- tion, said he was dismayed by the board's action. "The board appeared to be very interested in the facts of the case; he said. "However, we are disappointed that the board did not require Unocal to complete work that we believe has always been required by the law" He said his lawsuit will go forward, regardless of what the state water board does. A spokesman for Unocal could not be reached for comment. ,: '