MWFD Faces Felony Charge in Toxic Spill

In apparently the severest action of its kind in California, the Orange County district attorney’s office filed felony and misdemeanor charges Tuesday against the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California in connection with an October toxic spill that left six people with chemical burns.

The MWD was negligent and knowingly disregarded laws governing the discharge of toxic substances, a deputy district attorney said.

A single felony charge was filed against the district as a whole, while two misdemeanor charges were filed against each of four top district officials, including General Manager Carl Boronkay. The district faces a maximum fine of $1 million, while the misdemeanor defendants each face maximum penalties of $75,000 and three years in jail.

The criminal action, filed in North Orange Municipal District court, stems from an Oct. 26 spill of 466 gallons of caustic soda from the Robert B. Diemer Filtration Plant in Yorba Linda.

The soda, which burns skin on contact, spilled from the hilltop plant into Telegraph Canyon Creek, and flowed down into Chino Hills State Park. Caustic soda, which consists of sodium hydroxide, is used at Diemer and MWD’s four other treatment plants in Southern California to reduce water acidity level, said Jay Malinowsi, an MWD spokesman in Los Angeles.

The spill was caused, MWD officials said, when a pressure relief valve malfunctioned and the caustic soda backed up into an underground drain line that discharges into the creek.

The MWD is Southern California’s largest water district. It imports water from Northern California and the Colorado River for distribution to a service area of 15 million people in Los Angeles, Orange, San Diego, Ventura, Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

Jan Nolan, a deputy district attorney in charge of consumer fraud and environmental protection, said the felony charge was filed after an investigation by her office determined that the district had knowingly maintained, since at least 1984, a drainage system designed to discharge toxic chemicals into the creek.

District officials “knew the system was designed to do exactly what it did, which is to discharge chemicals into the creek,” Nolan said.

Orange County Dist. Atty. Michael R. Capizzi said the felony charge was filed under the state Water Code governing illegal discharging of hazardous waste. The two misdemeanor counts were filed against the officials under the state Health and Safety Code provision governing disposal of hazardous waste, and under the state Fish and Game Code, which protects fish, plant and bird life.

Besides Boronkay, other MWD officials named in the misdemeanor complaints are Paul Singer, MWD chief of operations; Richard Atkins, Diemer plant superintendent, and Lupe Castro, MWD assistant area superintendent.

Jay Malinowski, an MWD spokesman in Los Angeles, said Tuesday that the district had not yet had a chance to review the charges and would have no comment on them.

Alan Ashby, a spokesman for the state attorney general’s office in Sacramento, said he believes this is the first time that a felony charge has been filed against a public agency involving alleged environmental infractions.

The spill was not discovered until Oct. 28, two days after the discharge, Malinowski said, when six men riding mountain bicycles on a park trail suffered second-degree burns on their feet and legs after splashing through the foot-deep creek. One of the men, Charles E. Anderson, 22, of La Mirada, sought treatment at La Mirada Community Hospital.

“I thought I had thorns in my shoes,” Anderson said Tuesday of how he felt after drenching his feet in the creek. “I took my shoes off and my feet were yellow. Pus was coming out and they looked like hamburger.”

Told by a doctor at the hospital that he had suffered chemical burns, Anderson said he alerted Chino Hills State Park rangers that the creek might be contaminated.

The rangers, assisted by the Orange County Fire Department’s hazardous materials response team, subsequently traced the spill to the Diemer plant, which treats most of the imported drinking water for Orange County, southeast Los Angeles County and northwest San Diego County. The plant treats 600 million gallons of water per day.

In a Nov. 7 report to the MWD Board of Directors, Boronkay said that when the spill was discovered, all regulatory agencies were notified immediately and the discharge was located and stopped. A contractor was then retained for the cleanup, which included removing and disposing of contaminated water in the creek as well as the creek-bed soil, Boronkay said.

The cleanup--estimated to have cost the district $500,000--was supervised by the Santa Ana Regional Water Quality Control Board in Riverside, the state Department of Parks and Recreation, the state Department of Fish and Game and the Orange County Environmental Management Agency.

In addition to the district attorney’s charges, the water board has determined that the district negligently failed to provide a runoff tank to collect toxic materials used in the treatment process in the event of such a valve failure, said Jerry Thibeault, executive officer of the Regional Water Quality Control Board.

The board also concluded that the district erred by not maintaining a procedure by which pressure valves were routinely monitored for leaks, Thibeault said.

Thibeault said this leak, for instance, was discovered only after people were burned. He added that the valve had partially opened, allowing a slow but steady leak of the chemical over a three-day period. Nolan said the district attorney’s office is investigating a report that another person may have suffered chemical burns in the creek before Oct. 28.

Citing the MWD for illegal toxic discharge, the Water Quality Control Board on Dec. 22 levied a $10,000 civil fine against the district. MWD spokesman Malinowski said the district has paid the fine, as well as between $750 and $1,100 in damage claims filed by Anderson, Jeff Williams of Chino Hills and Roger Millikan of Norwalk. The other three bicyclists, Malinowski said, are in the process of filing claims.