ORANGE COUNTY PERSPECTIVE : Poetic Justice for the MWD

There is a measure of poetic justice in the settlement between the Orange County district attorney’s office and the Metropolitan Water District that will have the MWD making a $250,000 contribution to UCI Medical Center’s burn unit.

The agreement stemmed from a case in which discharge from an MWD facility burned some cyclists, a case that is believed to be the first in the United States where a public agency faced criminal charges under water-pollution law. The settlement may not satisfy everyone, but it has made an important point that ought to set a precedent, and a worthy cause will be served.

It’s ironic, after all this, that the MWD apparently believes that in agreeing to such a creative way around having to plead no contest--the payment to the burn center was the district attorney’s idea--it avoided the stigma of culpability. The public, looking at the record in this case, and looking at the settlement, will undoubtedly know better.

For example, we now know that on occasion, the water district knowingly dumped a caustic chemical from its Yorba Linda plant into a creek at Chino Hills State Park when a pipeline backed up. And the agency didn’t get around to spending the money needed to fix the problem until after a spill into the creek in 1989 found its way onto a bike trail--and then splashed on cyclists and their equipment.

For the world’s largest water supplier to willfully have allowed such a problem to continue is shameful. After all, this is an agency charged with preserving and protecting the integrity of a public water system. The MWD avoided a no-contest plea, but the stream of memos, statements and court proceedings in the public record tells a disturbing story.

The MWD has also paid several thousand dollars to the victims to cover medical costs and equipment losses. Moreover, the plant has been fixed, and the burn center will get a contribution. And, one hopes, at last the MWD has learned a lesson.