A Tainted Legacy : Toxic Dump Site in Riverside County Has Sparked the Nation’s Largest Civil Suit
When the Stringfellow Acid Pits were retired 20 years ago as a state-approved industrial waste dumping ground, they became a monument to Southern California’s manufacturing heyday.
But their legacy is as California’s worst toxic waste site.
On Monday, the trial begins here on the largest civil lawsuit in the nation’s history to pit neighbors of a toxic site against the companies that dumped there and the government agencies that allowed it.
After filing the legal action eight years ago, “we’re feeling we’re finally getting someplace,” said Penny Newman, spokeswoman for Riverside County residents who say industry’s need for a crude dumping ground came at their expense. “We’ll finally have our day in court.”
The legal case overshadows any other U.S. symbol of environmental sin short of asbestos, say attorneys who specialize in toxic tort cases. Larger than New York’s Love Canal, where 728 homes were evacuated as oily puddles oozed into back yards from below. Larger than Missouri’s Times Beach, where a town of 2,252 was abandoned in the face of dioxin-tainted waste oil spread on streets to control dust.
In Stringfellow, 3,800 residents of the semirural, working-class community of Glen Avon sued a host of corporations, including General Electric, McDonnell Douglas, Northrop, Montrose Chemical Co. and Rockwell International.
Those firms, and some 200 other companies and individuals, dumped 35 million gallons of chemical goop into unlined ponds scattered across a 17-acre former rock quarry a mile or so from homes in Glen Avon.
The dump operated from 1956 to 1972 with the blessing of the state of California and Riverside County, and was promoted as a logical and convenient industrial waste dump long before scientists and environmentalists understood the repercussions of what was occurring there.
In 1984--after a plume of toxic underground water was discovered seeping toward Glen Avon’s town water wells--the residents sued, saying the carcinogenic heavy metals, pesticides and acids had poisoned their bodies and caused property values to plummet.
In the face of federal action, 18 of the largest corporate users of the dump agreed last summer to pay $150 million toward the cleanup of Stringfellow--a project that may cost upward of $750 million. The state of California was told to pay 75% of the final cost, a ruling that it is appealing.
Since the Glen Avon lawsuits were filed, more than $50 million has been awarded to the 3,800 plaintiffs through out-of-court settlements involving General Electric, aluminum manufacturer Alumax Inc., quarry owner James B. Stringfellow Jr., and others.
But no settlements have been doled out to the plaintiffs. Instead, they chose to pool the money to finance the civil battle that will unfold here Monday.
The trial will play out in a onetime jury assembly room redesigned as a courtroom to accommodate a phalanx of attorneys, thousands of exhibits, 300,000 pages of court records and a jury double the normal size.
The Gargantuan courtroom battle is expected to last at least nine months. To find jurors able to serve that long, 2,000 candidates were questioned. Twenty-four jurors were selected to hear the case. Only after closing arguments will 12 jurors be designated to begin deliberations, with the other 12 on standby as alternates.
Not all 3,800 plaintiffs will have their cases heard simultaneously. Instead, groups of manageable sizes will proceed to trial, one after another. After verdicts are reached for the first 17 plaintiffs, another handful of residents will get their day in court. Then another group and another--until, either in court or through out-of-court settlements--the lawsuits of all plaintiffs are resolved.
The plaintiffs’ challenge is to prove that toxic chemicals from Stringfellow were carried by the wind or by ground water runoff into Glen Avon, where they were inhaled or ingested, causing injuries.
“The facts of this case are potent in terms of disturbing conduct that caused this site to be established where it is and maintained in a reckless manner over a long period of time,” New York City attorney Melvyn I. Weiss said. “The jurors will have no trouble understanding that, and as to why these people have legitimate claims for very serious stress injuries.”
Weiss speculated that the defense attorneys “will try to make it technical and confusing, but the jury will have no difficulty recognizing that kind of defense strategy as an attempt to obfuscate the truth.”
Howard Halm, an attorney who will defend the state of California, says although the toxic poisoning of the Stringfellow site is undisputed, there is no evidence that those toxins invaded Glen Avon and affected its residents.
A key piece of defense evidence, he said, is a three-year epidemiology study conducted by UCLA. The report concluded, he said, that “the people in Glen Avon are no different (medically) than people are anywhere else. They’ve got the same medical problems that everyone has. And just because they live near a hazardous waste disposal site doesn’t entitle them to compensation for the kinds of illnesses and concerns and worries that everyone else has.”
Experts in toxic tort cases say the plaintiffs’ challenge is to prove not only that the toxins at Stringfellow migrated to Glen Avon, but that those specific toxins are the cause of the alleged injuries.
“Those are very difficult hurdles to prove, in part because science isn’t well-enough along to say a particular physical manifestation of an injury has been definitely caused by a specific chemical that was ingested or inhaled at a specific point of time,” said Los Angeles environmental law attorney Pat Dennis.
Sacramento toxic tort attorney Duane Miller, who recently won $5 million on behalf of five men who were sterilized after exposure to pesticides, agreed.
“There’s no question that some of the substances at the landfill are exquisite carcinogens,” Miller said. “But if the plaintiffs can’t prove they were actually exposed and actually sustained medical problems because of that, then it’s a tempest in a teapot.”
Compounding the plaintiff’s burden, he said, is the need to prove that some toxins were carried by air to Glen Avon. “Trying to recreate what happened is extraordinarily difficult. It can be done, but not easily,” Miller said. “And the defense’s position is simply: ‘You can’t prove it.’ ”
The plaintiffs’ case would be made easier, he said, if some sustained “exquisitely rare illnesses for which there are few other known causes. But if you have extraordinarily common diseases with multiple causes, it’s much more difficult to prove that exposure to the Stringfellow chemicals were the significant contributing factor,” Miller said.
Penny Newman, the plaintiffs’ spokeswoman who is suing for depressed property values and a medical condition she will not disclose, said the plaintiffs are not fooling themselves into thinking that their cases will be a slam-dunk victory.
“We understand we’re at the cutting edge, not only within the legal system--which hasn’t had a long time dealing with toxic tort cases--but within the medical field too,” she said. “The medical profession is way behind the ball in exploring the health effects on people exposed to toxic chemicals. Few physicians are trained in that field, and medical schools haven’t yet focused on it.”
The first week of the trial is expected to be taken up by opening arguments. The first witness on behalf of the 17 plaintiffs--a Stanford University professor of chemical engineering--is expected to take the stand Jan. 18.
Meanwhile, state officials say they believe that the Stringfellow Acid Pits may not be clean of toxins for 446 years--when the toxic materials that have seeped into the crevices and rock fractures are broken down naturally.
