EPA Seeks to Fine Metals Firm Over Reporting : Environment: Coastcast Corp., which has a plant in Van Nuys, allegedly failed to provide information about chemicals it released from 1987 to 1990.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is seeking to fine a metal products manufacturer $391,000 for allegedly failing to report toxic releases from its plants in Van Nuys and two other Los Angeles area communities, the EPA announced Wednesday.

Coastcast Corp., a manufacturer of golf clubs and medical devices, over a four-year period failed to file toxic release inventory reports for its plants in the 16700 block of Stagg Street, and in Gardena and Compton, according to an administrative complaint issued by the EPA.

The proposed penalty “is one of the largest I’ve seen recently in this . . . region of the country,” said Bill Glenn, a spokesman for the EPA in San Francisco. Such complaints typically end in settlements in which companies agree to pay reduced penalties and improve pollution controls.

“We feel that is purely an administrative error,” said Roberto Roman, director of personnel for Coastcast. “It’s not something that we willfully tried to hide. . . . Maybe the right form didn’t get to the right place, or some misunderstanding along those lines.”

Toxic inventory reports are required under the federal “community right-to-know” law, which has given the public unprecedented access to data on industrial use and disposal of toxic chemicals.

The law covers manufacturing concerns that use at least 10,000 pounds per year of any of about 340 toxic substances. The firms are required to file annual reports estimating how much of the compounds they emit to the air, discharge to sewers or transfer to disposal sites.

Officials said they did not know how much metal waste Coastcast discharged into the environment. The complaint does not accuse the firm of causing environmental harm--merely of failing to provide data.

According to Glenn, “they did not tell us where their stuff is going, and that’s the whole problem.”

The complaint contends that Coastcast failed to file inventory reports on toxic metal wastes between 1987 and 1990.

It says that at the Van Nuys plant, the firm failed to estimate releases of chromium, nickel and copper for 1989 and 1990; and the previous year failed to report on chromium.

At the Gardena plant, the company allegedly failed to report on all three metals from 1987-90. During the four years, Coastcast also failed to report on chromium releases from the Compton plant, the EPA said.

The company has 20 days in which to file a formal response.