State Adds to Problem
It appears the state has made a bad situation even worse at the Lubrication Co. in Canyon Country, which was made a Superfund site because the facility had supposedly been poorly maintained (“Dispute Over Runoff From Pollution Site Takes Unusual Twist,” Times Valley Edition, Jan. 21).
Grant Ivey, the former operator of the facility, claims that he found breaks in the earthen dike surrounding his facility Jan. 16, the day after the state’s inspector claimed the earthen dike was fine. Ivey claims there were tens of thousands of gallons of water contained by the dike.
For the past two weeks it has been raining on taxpayers and state bureaucrats alike. Any state inspector should know that there was substantial likelihood that the earthen dike would be breached.
Ivey said that when he operated the facility, he routinely pumped the rainwater into empty tanks and allowed it to evaporate. Why didn’t the state do the same thing?
The state has so far spent $4 million of our money cleaning up the Lubrication Co. site and what do they have to show for it? A half-baked job gone bad.
I wonder who we need protection from more, the alleged polluters or the state of California?
SEAN MC CARTHY, Los Angeles
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