Governor Names D.A. Official to State EPA Post : Appointment: Gerald G. Johnston of consumer and environmental protection unit won big pollution case.

Gerald G. Johnston of the Orange County district attorney’s office was appointed by Gov. Pete Wilson on Friday to assistant secretary for law enforcement and counsel for the California Environmental Protection Agency.

His appointment does not require Senate confirmation.

Johnston, 37, is senior deputy district attorney with the county’s consumer and environmental protection unit. He joined the district attorney’s office in 1984 and currently serves as chairman of the county Hazardous Materials Strike Force.

The Corona del Mar resident will remain at his current job through May 19 and begin work with the Wilson Administration on June 5.

Johnston said Friday that California is facing “a lot of unique challenges” in environmental enforcement.

“At the state level, I’m particularly interested in clean air issues,” Johnston said. “I’d like to get involved in aggressive enforcement efforts to go after illegal pollution problems.”

The highest-profile case Johnston has prosecuted so far was the 1992 conviction of Marion Bruce Hale, a former Anaheim paint plant executive who had ordered his employees to secretly mix hundreds of thousands of gallons of toxic chemicals with ordinary trash that ended up in a county landfill.

Hale was found guilty of five felony counts of illegal dumping and received a three-year state prison sentence and a $26,000 fine. Prosecutors said it was the longest sentence ever given to a toxic polluter in California, and the first prison term for illegal dumping ever handed out by a judge in Orange County.

Johnston, who is active in the National District Attorneys Assn., was an environmental law instructor at UCI from 1991 to 1993. He received a bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Redlands in 1980, and a law degree from the USC Law Center in 1984.