Owner Jailed for Failing to Remove Wastes

The owner of a Sun Valley chemical distributing firm was sentenced Wednesday to six months in jail for failing to clean up chemicals after a 1985 fire that destroyed her plant.

In addition to the jail term, Marianne Pratter, owner of the defunct Research Organic & Inorganic Chemical Co., was placed on three years probation and ordered to pay $52,000 in fines, costs and restitution.

San Fernando Superior Court Judge Fred Rimerman remanded Pratter to jail, refusing to set bail although her attorney said she plans to appeal.

Pratter, 53, was convicted in December of one count of illegal disposal of hazardous wastes. The charge stemmed from her failure to remove chemical wastes after an April, 1985, fire at her plant at 9068 DeGarmo St. More than 50 people, mostly firefighters and police, suffered dizziness and impaired breathing as a result of the fire.

Soon after the fire, unstable chemicals at the site began to react, and the Environmental Protection Agency and Coast Guard were called in to remove them.

The federal team left behind chemicals that did not appear to pose an immediate health threat, and Pratter was ordered to have them removed. But she didn’t, and county officials removed them eight months after the fire.

The Los Angeles County district attorney’s office filed the charge against Pratter for her failure to clean up the chemicals. “She abandoned the hazardous materials on the premises,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Joseph P. Charney. “She basically walked away from it.”

Pratter previously operated her company in New Jersey. In 1983, a toxic gas leak on the company’s site cost the state $1 million to clean up. The following year, she pleaded guilty in New Jersey to charges of reckless storage of hazardous materials and creating a risk of widespread injury. In that case, she was sentenced to three years’ probation, five months of community service and a $15,000 fine.