Water Board Slaps $50,000 Fine on Whelan Dairy

In an attempt to rid Oceanside once and for all of a stench that has lingered for more than five years, the Regional Water Quality Control Board on Monday fined the estate of the late dairywoman Ellen Douglas Whelan $50,000 and threatened the dairy with $153,000 in additional penalties.

The fines, the stiffest ever levied against the embattled San Luis Rey Valley ranch, came after the executors of Whelan’s estate failed to complete a plan to clean up Whelan Lake, which sits in an unincorporated pocket of land adjacent to Camp Pendleton.

Board members said they hoped the harsh penalties would provide the necessary incentive to rid the lake, long the recipient of waste water from the dairy, of its foul-smelling pollutants and ultimately turn it into a nature preserve. According to a 1987 settlement of Whelan’s estate, 120 acres including the lake have been set aside as a bird sanctuary.

Even as they arranged the latest clean-up itinerary to be followed by the dairy, however, many board members had trouble hiding their disdain for the men who now manage it. Oceanside residents, they said, have waited too long for a breath of fresh air.

“I want (the dairy) to be heavily penalized,” said board member Mary Jane Forster. “I’m very dissatisfied with the whole effort and lack of activity and excuses. I want to do this (fining) every six months until it is such an atrocious penalty that they go bankrupt.”

“We are trying to spur action,” said board member Judith Johnson.

By unanimous vote, the board imposed the maximum fine allowable--$203,000. The first installment, $50,000, is due by Dec. 5, while the remaining $153,000 in fines will only be imposed if the Whelan estate fails to meet a series of deadlines.

The estate must submit an acceptable plan to clean up the lake by Nov. 16. Should that deadline be missed, another $50,000 will be due within 30 days. Then the estate must begin to implement that plan by Dec. 14, or else pay another $50,000 fine. Finally, Whelan Dairy must complete the cleanup by June 1, 1991, or face a penalty of $53,000.

Christopher Larsen, the attorney for the Whelan estate, said he was “very disappointed” by the board’s decision.

“I feel like a teen-age boy coming home late after a date and getting whupped by my dad--and he doesn’t want to know why I was late,” said Larsen, who added he would consider appealing the fine to state water authorities.

But Jan Driscoll, the attorney for the Whelan Lake Bird Sanctuary, said she was pleased that the board had heeded her testimony and levied the maximum fine.

“What we need is an attitude adjustment,” she said, referring to what she described as the dairy’s tendency to focus on “not what, but whether” to take the steps necessary to clean up the area. “If you read the plans they’ve put in, they are just reams of paper that say very little.”

Dana Whitson, the principal assistant to Oceanside’s city manager, was also gratified by the board’s action. At a public hearing before the vote, Whitson read a letter from City Councilman Sam Williamson that summed up the long-standing nuisance of the dairy.

“Each year, the city receives hundreds of complaints related to the odors emanating from Whelan Lake. Some complaints have come from as far as two miles away,” the letter stated, noting that the city spent $8 million for odor control facilities at the San Luis Rey sewage-treatment plant nearby.

“You can imagine the frustration of the city--and that of our citizens who have paid for the odor-control improvements--that our efforts to maintain an odor-free environment had been totally thwarted by the conditions at Whelan Lake,” the letter stated.

According to Williamson, the city of Oceanside has agreed to treat all of the polluted water from Whelan Lake in its San Luis Rey plant--a task city managers estimate will cost the city about $30,000.

Monday’s action is only the latest in a series of fines the board has imposed against the dairy. In 1986, the board imposed a fine of $164,000 for violations arising from an increase in the herd size from 463 to 1,080 cows. The board later settled the litigation for $10,000.

Then this September, the board fined the dairy $12,000 for failing to submit a report attesting to improvements that were required to be made at Whelan Lake. The dairy has not paid the fine, pending its appeal to state authorities.

Board member Norma J. Scheuneman said the dairy’s appeals were little more than stall tactics.

“If we put (another fine) on, they’re going to appeal it,” she said during the board’s deliberations on the matter. “It’s going to take another two years and we’ll still be sitting here with a stinking mess. I’m not convinced they’re going to clean up the problem.”