U.S. Attempt to Take Ecology Payout Blasted

The Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund has denounced an apparent move by the U.S. Justice Department to send a $4.2-million settlement check to the government instead of spending it on environmental work around San Francisco Bay as planned.

The proposed consent agreement with Union Oil Co. of California, a subsidiary of Unocal Corp., would settle a suit brought in 1984 by the environmentalist group under the federal Clean Water Act for alleged pollution of the bay. Sierra Club attorneys say they were prepared to charge more than 2,300 civil violations had the case gone to court in February.

Unocal agreed to pay $2.72 million to the Trust for Public Land to be used on wetlands and other land around the bay; $1 million for a study of dredging-material disposal and $500,000 for emergency pollution response.

In a letter dated March 12, a Justice attorney put the San Francisco District Court on notice that “any penalties . . . should be made by check payable to the ‘United States Treasury.’ ”

“This is one of those cases where we are simply quoting the law,” said Amy Casner, Justice Department spokeswoman. “We have to do that.”

Sierra Club attorney Stephan C. Volker called the move--the first intrusion into the 6-year-old case by Justice--”preposterous and infuriating.” If successful, he said, the money would disappear in the “bottomless pit” of the federal general fund.

Jeff Callender, spokesman for Unocal, called the letter “ambiguous,” adding that the question is unresolved in the law.