Vernon Company Agrees to $1.1-Million Settlement of Toxic Suit : Pollution: Firm had released poisonous gas into the air without proper notification to its neighbors.

A Vernon firm has agreed to a record $1.1-million settlement with the state for having released a toxic gas into the community without properly notifying neighbors, the California attorney general’s office announced Tuesday.

Griffith Micro Science, which sterilizes medical products, emitted 150,000 pounds a year of ethylene oxide, which can cause cancer and reproductive harm, from 1988 through 1990, and failed to provide sufficient notice under the rules of Proposition 65, according to Deputy Atty. Gen. Cliff Rechtschaffen.

Rechtschaffen said Griffith ran “minuscule ads” in the legal notices sections of three weekly newspapers with a total circulation of 40,000, but “that wasn’t remotely close to a clear and reasonable warning.”

Proposition 65 requires that individuals exposed to hazardous chemicals be warned of potential risks.

In July, 1990, the state sued Griffith and four other Southern California firms that were emitting the gas. One of the other companies has settled, and litigation is ongoing in the other three cases.

Under the settlement with Griffith, the firm will pay $250,000 in costs and civil penalties and relinquish pollution credits estimated in value by the attorney general at $840,000.

The credits, which can be bought and sold, were earned by the company for installing smog prevention equipment before it was required by the South Coast Air Quality Management District. The credits would have entitled their owner to release 150,000 pounds of smog-forming compounds annually. The credits were about to be issued by AQMD.

“In a lot of ways, this is more valuable than money because (the credits) are scarcer than money,” Rechtschaffen said. “The real benefit of this is not just the monetary impact but that we are going to put out of commission 150,000 pounds of polluting gases a year permanently from now on.”

Al Bowie, plant manager for the company, said he did not know whether the company had intended to use the credits or sell them. He said the company was not aware that its level of emissions required more extensive community notice under the Proposition 65 rules.