Task Force Seeks Toxic Waste Cure

Struggling to respond to the state’s toxic waste problem, Gov. George Deukmejian announced Wednesday the formation of a blue-ribbon task force to develop solutions to the public health threat and then confirmed that the FBI has launched an investigation of his Administration’s contracting practices for hazardous waste cleanup projects.

Deukmejian, in what was billed as a major policy speech, said the state “is approaching a capacity crisis in our ability to dispose of both liquid and solid hazardous waste. We’re on the verge of a garbage gridlock which threatens both the continued growth of our industries and the public health,” the Republican governor told more than 500 members of the Commonwealth Club during a noontime public affairs forum.

Deukmejian announced that he is appointing Theodore L. Hullar, chancellor of UC Riverside, to head the new toxics group, to be known as the Governor’s Task Force on Waste, Energy and Technology.

Threatening to overshadow the announcement was Deukmejian’s confirmation of a report by The Times that the FBI has launched an investigation of contracting practices by the state Department of Health Services at federal Superfund hazardous waste cleanup sites.

Death of 4-Year-Old

The FBI investigation began after a Riverside family complained that the state was trying to cover up its handling of a case involving the death of a 4-year-old boy who lived and played within a mile of the Stringfellow Acid Pits toxic dump site near Riverside, according to those interviewed by federal agents.

The Times reported that the boy’s family believes his death, due to aplastic anemia, a rare blood disease, was related to contaminated soil. Individuals contacted by the FBI told The Times that the investigation is broader than the Stringfellow case, and one source said the FBI is looking into the possibility that contractors are overcharging the state for toxic cleanup work.

Deukmejian, during a question-and-answer session after the speech, said he became aware of the investigation Wednesday morning, apparently after publication of the news story.

“They did confirm that they are conducting such an investigation,” the governor said of the FBI.

Deukmejian said, “We have told the FBI that we certainly will cooperate with them, and if there is anyone anywhere in our Administration who has done anything either in violation of the law or appropriate rules and regulations, we certainly want to have those actions fully investigated and prosecuted if there is such evidence.”

In his speech, Deukmejian called the problem of toxic waste “a global health disaster that’s waiting to happen.”

The governor said the task force will have a high-level, nonpartisan membership and include leading scientists, academicians, corporate leaders, environmentalists, legislators and government officials. They will be asked to report by next May 1 on “specific short-term and long-term technological and policy solutions to the toxics threat,” Deukmejian said.

Those under consideration for positions on the task force include Atty. Gen. John Van de Kamp, the chairmen and vice chairmen of the Senate and Assembly toxics committees and Michael McCloskey, former executive director of the Sierra Club, according to several sources close to those under consideration.

The governor said that since the high-technology advancement helped create the problem, “I am calling now on the same technological know-how to help solve it.”

Deukmejian, at one point, said that despite the proliferation of potentially dangerous chemicals and materials, society still does not know how to dispose of them.

“As advanced as we claim to be, how do we justify the fact that the way we dispose of our garbage is not much different from the way it was done back in the Stone Age? We dump it in the ground and bury it,” he said.

Deukmejian, saying that the state is running out of places to store wastes, said California has just three remaining Class 1 dump sites to dispose of the most deadly hazardous wastes and recently had to limit the intake at one of them.

The governor said the state has limited tools with which to battle the problem, and at one point conceded that his Administration “has struggled to respond to the growing threat.”

Deukmejian’s first three years as governor in fact have been marked by a series of embarrassments and delays in the handling of toxic waste cleanup programs.

Program Criticized

Last month, auditors for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency sharply criticized the Department of Health Services’ management of toxics programs in a report on the state’s handling of $28.5 million in federal Superfund projects. The report, later criticized by Deukmejian as “nit-picking,” said the state could not account for as much as $1.8 million in federal funds.

In September, the governor’s ambitious reorganization plan that would have put the state’s diverse toxics programs under one Cabinet-level department stalled in the Legislature after Democrats refused to vote for it unless Republicans agreed to support a welfare bill backed by Democrats.

Deukmejian, in his speech, said he will not call the Legislature into special session to reconsider his toxics program, as he once thought of doing. The governor said he is calling on Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco) and other Democrats to vote on the plan as soon as the Legislature returns to Sacramento to take up next year’s business in January.

Looking to Experts

As for the growing toxics problem, Deukmejian said that he hopes science will come up with an answer.

He said by putting together a high-level task force he is calling on “California scientists, inventors, entrepreneurs who have conquered killing diseases, who have helped to land men on the moon and have found a way to grow food for an entire world to help us find an appropriate solution to this major problem.

“Rather than just looking for new places to dump our garbage, we need to find new ways to destroy it, to render it nontoxic or to recycle the reusable parts,” he said.

Deukmejian said the University of California will provide support, staffing and facilities for the task force.

More appointments will be announced later in the week.

Hullar, the chairman, is considered a specialist in environmental policy. Deukmejian called him “uniquely qualified” because of a background in both science and administration, including a stint as deputy commissioner of New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation when that state was facing the Love Canal toxic cleanup problem.

Hullar was not available for comment Wednesday. A UC Riverside spokesman said the governor’s charge to find ways to neutralize toxic materials is in keeping with Hullar’s own philosophy. “His approach is to solve the problem at the (hazardous dump) site rather than transfer it elsewhere,” said Jack Chappell, director of information for the university.