Arco Told to Clean Up Waste

Arco Products Co. has been ordered to dispose of hazardous waste at its Carson oil refinery and faces a proposed $137,500 penalty under an order announced Friday by the state Department of Toxic Substances Control.

The company was cited for nine violations of hazardous waste laws based on three inspections by state toxics officers in March and April. According to the agency, inspectors observed waste from sandblasting operations escaping into the air and soil. Arco was also storing sandblasting grit in an open wooden box that allowed waste material to spill onto the ground.

The company blames the violations on outside contractors who sandblasted at the refinery without adequate safeguards. “We made this contention to the state,” spokesman Albert Greenstein said. He declined to name the contractors or to say if legal action will be taken against them.

Arco and agency officials will meet next week to discuss the penalty; Arco also has the right to appeal to an administrative law judge.

In June, ARCO paid $313,000 to settle an earlier complaint stemming from the mixing of hazardous waste sludge into dirt piles in violation of the refinery’s hazardous waste permit, the agency said. That incident occurred in 1989.