COUNTYWIDE : Cement Firm Owner Must Clean Riverbed

The owner of a Ventura concrete company was ordered Monday to clean out a load of concrete dumped into the Ventura River by one of his firm’s trucks.

Robert Frederick Biorkman, 49, of Ventura said after his sentencing that he will comply with the order issued by Municipal Judge John R. Smiley, who also gave him one year probation. Biorkman’s company, Concrete Express Co., was given three years probation and fined $1,970.

Biorkman faced up to six months in jail and a $1,000 fine, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Linda S. Groberg, who prosecuted the case.

Groberg said the illegal dumping was reported to the state Department of Fish and Game on March 13, 1990, by a passerby who spotted the truck backed into the riverbed near California 33 and Canada Larga Road.

“Without the citizen reporting it, we may not have had any proof of what went on,” Groberg said.

Biorkman told investigators that he was given permission to dispose of the concrete by Howard Nicholls, who owned the property along the river.

Nicholls, who denied granting his permission, pleaded no contest in February to unlawful alteration of the streambed. He was fined $2,395 and ordered to perform 40 hours of community work.

Groberg said Nicholls also was sentenced last month to a six-year prison term for violating probation on previous embezzlement charges and for unlawfully transporting hazardous waste.