FBI Closes Probe of Stringfellow Cleanup

An FBI investigation into the way the Deukmejian Administration handled cleanup operations at the Stringfellow Acid Pits in Riverside has found no evidence of criminal violations and the case has been closed, according to information made available by the governor’s office Thursday.

U.S. Atty. Robert C. Bonner, in a letter to Gov. George Deukmejian’s legal affairs secretary, said the FBI investigated charges that a major contractor at Stringfellow had submitted false billings to the state Department of Health Services, which is responsible for the cleanup.

The allegations grew out of the death of 4-year-old Michael Harman, who died in 1984 of complications of a rare blood disease. The boy and his family lived a mile from the Stringfellow dump site.

His parents, Steve and Diane Harman, contended that a contractor hired by the state, JRB Associates--now Science Applications International Corp.--had taken soil samples from their backyard after the boy’s death, but failed to conduct the tests for contaminants that might have caused the youngster’s disease.

The FBI launched its probe to determine if the firm had billed for the testing.

In Bonner’s letter, to legal affairs secretary Vance W. Raye, he stated: “We now have concluded this investigation and have not uncovered any evidence that false billings were submitted by JRB Associates for work at the Harman residence. Therefore, we are closing this investigation.”

For reasons that were not made clear, the Dec. 24 letter was not made public until Thursday.

The FBI investigation was first revealed in November, 1985, and had haunted the governor through his successful reelection campaign last year.

Coupled with a highly critical report of the Administration’s toxics cleanup program by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the investigation cast a cloud over the performance of the Department of Health Services’ toxic substances control division.

But soon after the FBI probe came to light, Deukmejian acknowledged his own disappointment in the slow pace of toxics cleanup in the state.

And in the months that followed, he brought in a new team to run the cleanup program and formed a task force of state officials and outside experts to look for new ways of disposing of hazardous waste.

Some of those contacted by the FBI indicated that the probe went beyond the Harman case itself and was directed at contracting practices at federally financed Superfund dump sites managed by the state.

But the Bonner letter referred only to the Harman case.

In a review of its own, state Department of Health Services officials returned to the Harman home and took additional soil samples, only to discover that the yard where the boy played was not contaminated.