Ortega Dump Inquiry Leads to Rental Van

A white, powdery substance found in a rental van is being checked for a possible connection with toxic chemicals that were illegally dumped last week along the Ortega Highway in southern Orange County, authorities said Monday.

Officer Ken Daily of the California Highway Patrol said samples of the substance were taken from inside a van that investigators had located Friday at Tice’s Rental Center in El Toro.

Officers were led to the vehicle after two witnesses told them they had detected a strong odor after encountering a white van with a green logo along the highway.

“After talking around a bit, we decided that Tice’s was the only one with white and green,” Daily said.

A rental center employee, asked if there was anything unusual about any of the firm’s vans, told officers one of them had a white power residue in it, Daily said.

However, Daily said, the only white powdery substance found along the highway last Wednesday was a barrel of Vitamin C, which had not been broken open.

The first report about such a van was made by a Sacramento woman who had driven along the Ortega Highway en route to visit friends in the Riverside County community of Lake Elsinore, Daily said.

“When she saw the reports about the chemical dumps, she called our Rancho California office and said she had been passed at a high rate of speed by a white-and-green van that was emitting a foul odor,” Daily said.

The woman told officers that she later saw the van backed into a turnout along the south side of the two-lane road.

The chemicals discovered illegally dumped Wednesday were at a turnout on the south side of the highway.

Daily said a second motorist later reported being passed by a similarly colored van that was emitting a strange smell.

Daily said he did not know when results of the tests conducted on the samples taken from the truck would be available.