Cerritos Firm, 3 Employees Charged With Illegal Dumping of Toxic Waste

A local manufacturing firm and three of its employees were charged Wednesday with allegedly putting nickel-laden waste water, which can kill plant and animal life, into sewer systems and storm drains.

If convicted, Transducers Inc., also known as Revere Transducers Inc. and RTI, could pay up to $100,000 in fines for each of the three felony counts of illegal disposal of hazardous waste.

The employees, Robert Fordyce, director of operations; Eric L. Sorensen, chief manufacturing engineer; and Dan Hughes, plating department manager, could receive up to three years in prison for each count if convicted. Fordyce is charged with just two counts.

The charges were filed by the Los Angeles County district attorney’s environmental crimes and OSHA unit. Arraignment is set for March 15 in criminal court in Los Angeles.

Transducers makes parts for electronic scales and has two manufacturing sites and 214 employees in northeast Cerritos, at 17502 Fabrica Way and at 14030 Bolsa Lane. The sites are across the street from one another, said Susan Canter, deputy district attorney.

Peter R. Perino, listed on the business license in Cerritos City Hall as president of the company, said through a secretary that he had no comment. Fordyce, who was reached at his office Thursday, also said he had no comment.

Canter said the allegedly illegal disposal came to the attention of the district attorney’s office after a spot check on Transducers in late 1988 showed high levels of nickel in its waste water. The spot checks were done by the Sanitation Districts of Los Angeles County.

“We have the capability of doing surveillance of all metal plating and finishing industries,” said Robert M. Wienke, the sanitation districts project engineer who alerted the district attorney’s office and the Los Angeles County Health Department when high levels of nickel showed up in Transducers’ waste water.

According to Wienke, waste water from Transducers and other area manufacturing plants flows to the sanitation districts’ Los Coyotes Waste Water Treatment Plant near the intersection of the 605 and 91 freeways. The treatment plant, Wienke said, cannot take high levels of nickel out of waste water before it is discharged into the San Gabriel River, which flows into the ocean, where the nickel could kill plant and animal life.

On Jan. 16 and 17, 1989, health and sanitation investigators measured the amount of nickel in the Transducers waste water and found levels ranging from 27.6 to 515 milligrams per liter of water. Anything over 20 milligrams per liter is considered a felony violation, Wienke said.

The first two counts against Transducers are for allegedly pouring its nickel-laden waste water into the sink in its plating room on Jan. 16 and 17, Canter said. After investigators inspected the plant on Feb. 6, 1989, Canter said, Transducers closed the plating part of its operations.

The third count, Canter said, is for allegedly dumping toxic waste water down storm drains between Jan. 1, 1985, and June 1, 1989, at another Transducers plant in Whittier at 12140 Rivera Road. The Whittier plant, Canter said, has been closed but she did not know for how long.

When investigators began looking at the two Cerritos plants, Canter said, they learned about the alleged illegal disposal at the Whittier plant.

Transducers, Wienke said, should have been pouring its nickel-contaminated water into barrels and taking them to a licensed disposal firm. That would have cost the firm more money, he acknowledged. Transducers, Wienke said, is now contracting out its plating work.