Illegal Chemical Dumping Cited : Plating Firm’s Sewer Line Capped

City officials cut and capped the sewer line of a Sun Valley metal plating company Wednesday, citing a series of episodes of illegal dumping of dangerous chemicals into the sewers that was first noted in September and continued even after the company was raided last month.

The Board of Public Works, whose president called it the “worst-looking situation we’ve seen,” voted unanimously for the action after the owner of All Valley Plating Co. Inc. and his son, who is a company manager, tried to defend themselves at a hearing in the face of evidence presented by the Bureau of Sanitation.

Sanitation officials cited daily tests of the company’s sewage through May and June that frequently showed excessive levels of cyanide, cadmium and other toxic metals, and acidic conditions that, when combined with cyanide, can produce deadly fumes.

Cyanide is used throughout the metal plating industries. Cadmium, zinc and other metal finishes bond to a steel surface only when it is bathed in a solution containing cyanide.

Evidence From Raid

Officials also presented evidence gathered when the city attorney’s Hazardous Materials Strike Force raided the company a month ago.

Norman Cotter, chief industrial waste inspector for Los Angeles, presented a map of the plant, at 11321 Goss Street, and photographs showing a variety of violations, including improper storage of hazardous materials and leaking tanks and pipes.

“The day we raided, everything seemed to be leaking,” Cotter said. In one spot, inspectors found a pool of sludge and liquid more than a foot deep, held back by a low barrier that was designed to contain effluent only in an emergency, he said.

“It looked like a sea of waste under all of those tanks,” Cotter said.

William Gahnberg, an industrial waste inspector, told the board that the company had made some improvements to its physical plant after the raid, sealing some leaks and repairing instruments that monitor waste levels.

Despite those actions, in the three weeks after the raid, sampling devices placed in the sewers by the Bureau of Sanitation detected 30 more violations, Cotter said.

“So, after the raid, it was business as usual,” said Maureen Kindel, board president.

Scott Horton, who manages day-to-day operations for the company, said he is convinced that someone--perhaps a competing firm--is trying to “sabotage” All Valley Plating.

His father, Lawrence Horton, a former attorney who owns the firm, said he had been puzzled by a draft of the bureau’s report that showed that some of the high levels of toxic waste were recorded at night, when the company was closed.

“The burden of proof isn’t with us. It’s your problem,” said Commissioner R. O. Schwendinger.

Cotter said the high nighttime readings may have been caused when runoff from the large pool of sludge and liquid waste continued to flow into the sewers after the plant had closed.

Permit Revoked

Other actions taken against All Valley Plating included revocation of the company’s industrial waste permit, billing of the company for the cost of the investigation and turning over of the case to the city attorney’s office for possible criminal action.

The loss of the sewer line won’t put All Valley Plating out of business, Lawrence Horton said. “We’re going to switch over to another system we’ve already got installed that recycles all our waste water,” he said.

This is the 15th time the board has sealed a company’s sewers since 1982, said Anna Sklar, a spokeswoman for the Department of Public Works. About half of the firms that come before the board are plating companies, she said.