Unocal Faces Possible Fines in Pollution Case

An environmental lawyer said Friday that a federal judge’s ruling clears the way for a record $39 million to $59 million in civil fines against Unocal--and perhaps much more--for polluting San Pablo Bay.

In a decision this week, U.S. District Judge Samuel Conti reaffirmed his previous conclusion that the company could be held liable for routing wastes around its Contra Costa County treatment plant into the bay, and said it was irrelevant that the state may have known of the bypasses.

“This is the purpose behind the citizen enforcement provisions of the Clean Water Act--to ensure that our environmental laws are enforced even where a state or the federal government have not been diligent in their roles,” Conti said.

Stephan Volker of the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund said the Sierra Club will now present evidence to Conti of 2,383 instances between 1977 and the present in which Unocal, known for part of the period as Union Oil, bypassed its treatment plant in waste discharges from its refinery in the community of Rodeo.

Federal law now allows civil penalties of $25,000 a day for Clean Water Act permit violations. At that rate, penalties for all the claimed violations would amount to $59 million, and those for 1980 and after would be $39 million.

The money would go to the federal or state governments or, if all sides agreed, to a nonprofit organization such as a nature conservancy or land trust.

The penalties for pre-1987 violations were $10,000 a day, but Volker said the Sierra Club contends that the current penalties can be applied to violations whenever they occurred.

In addition, Volker said, California law allows much higher penalties for water pollution, based on gallonage, that would bring Unocal’s fines into the billions if Conti allowed them to be applied.

The lawyer said he believes the largest amount ever paid by a polluter in a private enforcement suit was $1.75 million.

Last December, Conti ruled that the company had violated its federal waste discharge permit 200 times, including nine bypasses of its treatment plant, between April, 1979, and February, 1988.

Volker said then that the wastes flowing into the bay during the violations included phenols and other potentially cancer-causing substances such as benzene, toluene, acetone and TCE. He also said the company had saved between $20 million and $60 million by failing to install adequate treatment equipment.

Conti agreed to reconsider the bypass issue at the request of Unocal.