MWD to Settle Case With Gift to UCI Burn Center

The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California agreed Tuesday to donate $250,000 to UCI Medical Cener’s burn unit to settle criminal charges that it dumped a caustic chemical in a state park that injured several cyclists, The Times has learned.

The MWD board voted in closed session Tuesday afternoon to settle the case, according to several high-ranking sources within the water agency. In exchange, the Orange County district attorney’s office will reportedly drop all criminal charges against MWD and four of its top administrators.

The criminal case, filed 1 1/2 years ago, was being watched closely in environmental circles, because it involved allegations that MWD--the world’s largest water supplier and one of the most influential political forces in Southern California--willfully violated a major environmental law.

It is believed to be the first time in the nation that a public agency had been charged with a felony under water-pollution law, and the fine could have reached as high as $1 million.

The unusual terms of the settlement, which is one of the largest payments ever in an Orange County environmental case, will not be final until filed in court, probably next week, and approved by a judge. In agreeing to the payment, prosecutors are not requiring MWD to acknowledge committing any crime.

The district attorney’s office suggested donating the settlement to the burn center at UCI Medical Center in Orange, where officials expressed surprise, saying that no county officials had consulted with them.

“No one here has heard about any type of donation like that,” said Fran Tardiff, a spokeswoman for the center. “Of course, this would be a wonderful thing for the burn center and the patients.”

MWD board members and top administrators refused to discuss the settlement talks. Christopher Kralick, head of the district attorney’s environmental-crimes unit, also declined to comment.

From Oct. 26 to 28, 1989, at least 466 gallons of extremely concentrated sodium hydroxide was discharged from MWD’s Diemer filtration plant in Yorba Linda into nearby Telegraph Creek, which runs through Chino Hills State Park.

The spill went undetected by MWD plant operators for the three days, until six men cycling through the park splashed through the liquid on a bike trail.

Tests showed a half-mile stretch of the creek was 10 times more caustic than bleach. The men suffered second-degree chemical burns on their legs, backs, buttocks and other body parts, and their mountain bikes, tires and clothing were pitted by the corrosive chemical.

None of the injuries were serious, although several of the cyclists received outpatient medical care for small, round, festering sores that took about two weeks to heal.

MWD paid several thousand dollars to the men to cover medical costs and equipment losses.

Three months later, the water district was charged with a felony count of willfully polluting a state waterway and causing bodily harm, as well as a misdemeanor count of violating the state’s Fish and Game code.

County prosecutors filed the charges because an investigation concluded that the incident was not simply an accidental spill.

State water quality officials discovered that MWD had long operated an illegal plumbing system at the Yorba Linda plant that was designed to dump the dangerous chemical into the state park during rare instances when pressure built up in a pipeline.

The case has dragged on for 1 1/2 years, with the prosecution’s case becoming mired in legal complications, casting doubt on the likelihood of a felony conviction.

In December, a Municipal Court judge reduced the felony charge to a misdemeanor, partly because he said he thinks that a public agency cannot be held liable for a felony.

The district attorney, however, planned to refile the charge as a felony in a motion scheduled to be considered by the judge Aug. 9.

A confidential memo from MWD’s general counsel office says the settlement “evolved over a prolonged series of discussions” with the district attorney’s office.

Prosecutors, according to the memo, originally wanted a $100,000 payment and a plea of no contest.

MWD officials rejected that because a no-contest plea is tantamount to a guilty plea and therefore was unacceptable to the water agency, the memo says.

Some MWD officials also objected to the designated recipient of the money.

Three county members of the board’s legal committee voted against the settlement in a contentious closed-door meeting. They thought it was inappropriate to give money in a water pollution case to a hospital burn center.

MWD officials and their attorneys wanted it to go instead toward buying equipment for the county to monitor waterways and sewers.

“It was made clear,” the memo says, “that the D.A.’s office wanted the payment to benefit an organization within the county that had some, even if tenuous, linkage to the crime. . . . It was also made clear that this was a non-negotiable element of the settlement.”

A source within the D.A.’s office said Dist. Atty. Michael R. Capizzi thought the donation to the ward would not only perform a good public service but was a fitting penalty because the chemical had burned the cyclists.

The pollution case was unusually serious for the county because it is the only one that has been pursued in which people suffered immediate and obvious injuries from chemical dumping.

Misdemeanor charges against the top MWD employees will also be dropped if the settlement is accepted by the court: Carl Boronkay, general manager; Paul Singer, chief of operations; Lupe Castro, assistant area superintendent at the Yorba Linda plant, and Rich Atkins, plant operations supervisor in Yorba Linda.

The MWD already paid a $10,000 fine to the regional water board last year for violating state pollution laws.