Defunct Firm’s Owner, Charged in Toxic Fire, Surrenders

Mariane Pratter, former owner of a Sun Valley chemical company that burned last April, releasing toxic fumes that injured 56 people, surrendered in San Fernando Municipal Court Friday, one week after criminal charges were filed against her for illegally disposing of hazardous waste.

Pratter, who owned Research Organic & Inorganic Chemical Co., was released on $10,000 bail. Her arraignment was continued until May 15 after her attorney said he had not had time to review the charges against her.

She was charged by the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office with two felony counts of unlawful disposal of hazardous wastes and three misdemeanor counts of maintaining a public nuisance, unlawful storage of hazardous wastes and failure to properly store a radioactive substance.

The charges all relate to Pratter’s failure to remove hazardous materials from the building site after the fire, according to Marcia W. Strickland, deputy district attorney.

Pratter refused comment on the charges. Her company, a chemical packing and distribution firm, went out of business after the fire.

Court Commissioner Charles L. Peven denied a request by Pratter’s attorney, Michael Plotkin, to allow her to be released on her own recognizance.

Pratter is accused of keeping toxic, flammable and radioactive materials on the site, including a two-ton cylinder of a highly reactive and flammable rocket fuel oxidizer called chlorine trifluoride and low-level uranium and thorium.

Plotkin said outside of court that Pratter was “able and willing to comply” with several notices from the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services to properly repack and remove all salvageable materials after the fire.

“She was prevented from doing so by guards at the site and was locked out after the fire,” Plotkin said. “She had tried to hire a private company to clean up.”

Plotkin said he would be looking into the fact that the Environmental Protection Agency was brought in to do the cleanup, despite Pratter’s attempts to hire a professional firm to do it. “She was financially able to handle the costs of cleanup,” he said.

According to court documents, officials with I. T. Corp., a commercial hazardous materials cleanup company, arrived at the scene immediately after the fire and told County Health Department officials that Pratter did not have the “financial credibility to assume the costs” of cleanup.

Because of this, the EPA assumed control of a two-week, $140,000 cleanup by I. T. Corp., an EPA spokesman said.

If convicted of all charges, Pratter could be sentenced to a maximum of three years and eight months in prison and fined more than $150,000.

Pratter also faces a $20-million civil lawsuit filed last month by 20 police officers who claim they were injured by toxic fumes during the April 14 blaze.