COUNTYWIDE : Study Praises Firm Proposing Landfill

After a five-month investigation, a Seattle law firm has given high marks to the controversial company that wants to build a landfill at Weldon Canyon near Ventura.

In the 77-page report released Friday, a lawyer for Culp, Guterson & Grader found no evidence that the company was involved in “traditional organized crime,” as alleged by the San Diego County district attorney’s office.

“If Waste Management and its California subsidiaries have ties to traditional organized crime, it is not a matter of public record,” attorney Richard C. Yarmuth wrote in the report prepared for Ventura County’s Solid Waste Management Department. The county hired the firm to do the $21,000 study.

Yarmuth also wrote that he found the waste firm is “highly regarded for its technical capacities and operations.”

“The company received high marks from virtually every regulatory official with whom we spoke,” he wrote.

Yarmuth did not recommend how the county should proceed in light of San Jose theft indictments against Waste Management of California. In July, a Santa Clara County grand jury charged the company with grand theft for allegedly cheating a rival landfill operation and the city of San Jose out of at least $850,000 over a six-year period.

Some local officials, however, said the law firm is biased in favor of Waste Management.

“This is a whitewash,” Ojai Councilwoman Nina Shelley said. Shelley is a member of a committee of west county public officials that is reviewing the county’s negotiations with Waste Management on its proposal to build a landfill at Weldon Canyon.

In April, Dist. Atty. Michael D. Bradbury said San Diego County Dist. Atty. Edwin Miller told him that the law firm had close ties with Waste Management. But neither Bradbury nor Miller would elaborate.

Yarmuth, who could not be reached for comment Friday, has insisted that his firm has never had a relationship with Waste Management.