JUSTICE : Parenting Chevron : A mother suggests a punishment for the dumping of toxic materials off the Ventura County coast and then denying it.

He is sitting with his hands pressed tightly between his knees, his head lowered. In silence, he stares at his shoes. For him, the moments are probably ticking by interminably, this waiting, waiting, waiting for his punishment to be meted out.

But choosing the proper punishment takes time and I won’t be rushed. There are too many factors to be considered.

The wrongdoing is not in dispute. My son has admitted that, yes, it was he who rode his bicycle into the neighbor’s RV and broke one of the taillights. And yes, he got on his bike and rode away, thinking no more about it.

But now there are two wrongdoings to be punished--the original act and the attempt to get away with it. And the questions facing me now are ones that parents the world over struggle with:

How do you prevent a child from having the moral imperative: It’s OK to do something wrong as long as I don’t get caught? And how do you give him a sense of responsibility for property that doesn’t belong to him?

The clock ticks. I briefly consider having him empty his piggy bank and take it next door. But that would be too easy. And then I make up my mind.

He will go to the neighbors and tell them what he did. He will ask them what he can do--mow their lawns, wash their windows--to earn the money to pay for the repairs. Then I tell him he can go.

As he rises from the sofa and walks with a hangdog expression toward the door, I sit down with coffee and the morning paper. It was a good decision, I think. Justice was served.

Which is more than I can say for another punishment that I read about on the front page.

Raymond Galvin, president of Chevron USA Production Co., handed over a $6.5-million check last week after the company pleaded guilty to the repeated illegal dumping of toxic materials off the Ventura County coast during the 1980s. In addition to the dumping, the company had tried to cover up its activities.

“We certainly learned a lot from it,” said Galvin, who apologized for the whole unfortunate matter. “But it certainly was a very expensive lesson.”

Government prosecutors, who had required that a top-level executive from Chevron make a personal appearance in court, seemed happy with the outcome of the case. Along with a $1.5-million fine in civil penalties the company will be paying, it was the third-largest environmental fine against any U. S. company.

“We wanted a top decision-maker in the courtroom to let it be known in no uncertain terms that corporate decisions cannot be measured in just dollars and cents,” said Assistant U.S. Atty. Gary S. Lincenberg after the hearing.

“They will be held accountable for committing crimes against the environment.”

Held accountable? I’m no legal expert, but as a parent this sure doesn’t sound like accountability to me.

The fine Chevron was ordered to pay was a drop in the bucket for them, and had nothing to do with giving them a sense of responsibility for what they had done. Even if Chevron hadn’t already figured legal expenses into the normal cost of doing business, they’re probably figuring those costs in now.

That, or they’re calculating how much more we’ll have to pay at the pump.

As for what lesson they have learned from this, your guess is as good as mine. Certainly it can’t be that they didn’t know dumping toxins into our ocean is wrong and now they do.

If that were true, the company wouldn’t have pleaded guilty to 36 counts of knowingly exceeding the oil and discharge limits, of allowing untreated waste water to enter the ocean and then falsifying reports they gave to the Environmental Protection Agency.

And they certainly wouldn’t have had the audacity to expect anyone to consider seriously the comments of Jerry Ross, a Chevron attorney in San Francisco, who said that Galvin wanted to appear in court as much as the government wanted him to because “he felt his appearance . . . would demonstrate the company’s commitment to environmental matters.”

If you believe that, I have some lovely oceanfront property in Kansas to sell you.

The problem, of course, isn’t just with companies such as Chevron. Part of it also is in the legal system.

As long as judges and juries think that monetary penalties and jail time are the only options for deterring wanton disregard for the environment, the wanton disregard will continue.

As far as I’m concerned, it’s time those judges and juries started to think more creatively. Time that they thought like parents.

For starters, executives of offending companies could be ordered each morning to the ocean sites where they did their dumping--perhaps with a Sierra Club member or two along as lifeguards. Then they could be required to practice the breaststroke for an hour or two amid the muck.

A judge with real teeth would make them wear one of those thong bathing suits.

After toweling off on the oily beaches, the executives could then be required to read aloud from medical journals about the effects of toxins on such things as the human nervous system and the link to cancers. Then, instead of contritely eating crow in the courtroom, the executives could humbly eat fish.

Freshly caught, of course, from nearby waters.

While dining, they would be treated to a rundown about how the chemicals they have been dumping are toxic to marine life. And how eating those fish is toxic to humans.

A sentence like that wouldn’t be as simple as paying an $8 million fine. But it certainly would be justice as justice was meant to be.

And the next time one of those executives stood up and talked about concern for the environment, some of us might be slightly more inclined to believe him.

At least, some of the parents among us might be.

* THE PREMISE

Attitudes is a column about a variety of current issues and trends.