Fricker Co. Agrees to Pay $200,000 for Toxic Cleanup

The owner of a torched chemical warehouse which was the site of Orange County’s worst toxic emergency has agreed to pay $200,000 to the government for cleanup costs, tentatively settling a long-running lawsuit.

The Larry Fricker Co. agreed that it was liable for the fire, which federal prosecutors contended was due to the firm’s carelessness.

Fricker’s pesticide and herbicide warehouse in the 1400 block of State College Boulevard in Anaheim caught fire on June 21, 1985, triggering a toxic chemical cloud that forced the evacuation of more than 7,500 people in Anaheim, Fullerton and Placentia.

The tentative settlement was filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles. Fricker owner Paul Etzold, his lawyers and Assistant U.S. Atty. Claudia Silbar all declined comment.

The government had, most recently, sought $310,000 to cover the federal government’s part in fighting the fire, investigating its cause and prosecuting Fricker. The settlement, to be paid in installments through 1993 and backed by the assets of the firm, means no trial will be necessary.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency must still approve the settlement before it becomes final, a process which could take a month.

Fricker was accused of both negligently storing chemicals and also failing to take proper security precautions at its plant. Investigators said they believe that the fire was deliberately set.

Fricker’s attorneys had raised an unusual defense, claiming that arson is such an unlikely occurrence that the firm should not be required to guard against it. They claimed that there was nothing the firm could have done to protect against the prime suspect, allegedly a jilted girlfriend of Etzold who investigators said acted for “revenge.”

While the former girlfriend has been named by both Etzold’s attorneys and the government in court documents relating to the federal suit, she has never been charged with a crime.

Federal prosecutors alleged that Fricker had a history of failing to provide enough security at its facilities, citing two instances of vandalism at the firm’s old Tustin warehouse. A toxic leak there in 1981, which led to the evacuation of 1,800 people, may have been caused by vandalism. The Anaheim warehouse also was burglarized twice, which should have raised questions about the “vulnerability of the facility to unauthorized entry,” according to government papers.

Among the 70 to 80 chemicals stored at the warehouse were highly flammable ammonium sulfate and ammonium nitrate compounds, pressurized barrels of methyl bromide, as well as paraquat and other insecticides.

Throughout the lawsuit up to the tentative settlement, Fricker had insisted that there were no additional reasonable precautions that could have been taken. The plant complied with all zoning and safety requirements, and had been inspected shortly before the fire.

Difficulties in fighting the fire--in part because of lack of complete information on the contents of the warehouse--were credited with helping speed passage of a county hazardous materials-disclosure ordinance later that same year.