2 Arrested in Illegal Dumping of Hazardous Waste : Sting operations: The district attorney’s office took action after seeing a newspaper ad.

Two Ventura men have been arrested on suspicion of illegally handling hazardous waste after Ventura County investigators answered a want ad that the men allegedly ran saying, “Hazardous Waste Transport and Cleanup--Reasonable.”

Howard B. Nicholls, 42, and Thomas Richardson, 37, were arrested last Friday in the sting operation, which the district attorney’s office set up after reading the ad in a local newspaper Oct. 8, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Linda S. Groberg.

The two were released on $5,000 bail each, pending their arraignment in Ventura County Municipal Court, which is scheduled for Friday.

Investigator Jack Hughes said his office set up the sting because “I had a strong suspicion” that the people who ran the ad were illegally handling hazardous waste.

Hughes said he went through the county Department of Environmental Health to contact an unidentified Moorpark company that was moving out of a warehouse and had to dispose of some hazardous waste.

The company agreed to leave two 55-gallon drums of a flammable organic compound in a yard outside the warehouse, Hughes said. One was a sealed 55-gallon drum, while the other was a larger plastic drum sealed around a 55-gallon drum that was in danger of leaking, Hughes said.,

Hughes said he and Nick Guzik, an investigator for the California Highway Patrol, answered the want ad and arranged to have the people who ran the ad meet them in Moorpark to pick up the drums.

Posing as representatives of the company that produced the waste, Hughes and Guzik waited until Richardson and two helpers showed up in a half-ton pickup truck at 11 a.m. last Friday.

Richardson and his helpers loaded the barrels into the truck and drove them to the intersection of Shell Road and Ventura Avenue, where they unloaded them in a storage yard, Hughes said.

Hughes said he later learned that Nicholls had arranged to have the barrels picked up and disposed of. After the arrest, the district attorney’s office arranged to have the flammable waste disposed of properly, he said.

Nicholls and Richardson had no licenses to transport or store hazardous waste, Groberg said.

The men were arrested on suspicion of felony violations of the state Health and Safety Code governing hazardous waste handling, but Groberg said her office has not decided how the men will be charged at their arraignment.