Whittier Firm to Pay $33,279 to Settle Civil Suit Over Acid Spill
The Whittier Drum & Vacuum Co. of Whittier has agreed to pay $33,279 to settle a civil suit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court by the district attorney’s office over an acid spill in Azusa and Irwindale last July.
District attorney’s investigators said Andy W. Burchett, then a co-owner of Whittier Drum & Vacuum, picked up 21 containers of nitric acid solution at Western Disposal Co. in Azusa and planned to take them to the BKK landfill in West Covina.
But, they said, the solution spilled out of the 55-gallon drums onto Irwindale Avenue, Gladstone Street and Arrow Highway and some of it was swept out of the truck onto vacant ground in an Irwindale industrial area.
The district attorney’s office filed a civil complaint charging several violations of state law, including negligent disposal of hazardous waste. Without admitting wrongdoing, Whittier Drum & Vacuum Co. agreed under a stipulated judgment to pay $25,000 in civil penalties and $8,279 for the county’s legal and investigative costs.
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