Authorities Raid Chemical Company

About 40 agents from local, state and federal agencies seized business records and took chemical samples Thursday from Caspian Inc., which allegedly violated its industrial waste permits, officials said.

Measurements taken in 1989 by the sewer department revealed that the Kearny Mesa chemical company had exceeded the amount of chromium--a toxic chemical--it was permitted to discharge into the sewer system, said Tony Lovett, a deputy district attorney who prosecutes environmental crimes.

The amount of chromium the company was permitted to discharge was 7 parts per million, Lovett said. But measurements taken last April and in November revealed discharges of 18 p.p.m. and 55 p.p.m.

An attorney for Caspian, Allen Haynie, said the company, situated in the 4900 block of Ruffin Road, was never told it violated its permits. He said the company paid licensed haulers to carry away its hazardous waste.

“We’ve never had reason to believe that we are not in compliance,” he said. “There are a whole host of environmental regulations. This is not the kind of business where you can violate the rules.”

Caspian is known as a “chemical mill,” said Richard Cecelski, a supervisor for the fraud division of the district attorney’s office and who was in charge of the investigation. The company uses chemicals to etch recesses into metal plates used in the aerospace industry.

Cecelski said the documents seized will help determine what types of chemicals the company used, how they were used, and how they where disposed of.

About 20 boxes of business records were seized and samples of chemicals at the site were taken. Cecelski said the samples were taken from the sewer pipes, on the ground and from tanks. He said it will takes several weeks to analyze them and sift through the paper work.