Judge to Rule on Trial Over Dumping of Hazardous Chemicals : Sun Valley: Business owner has blamed an employee for contamination, but worker maintains he was forced.

A Superior Court judge is expected to rule today on whether the owner of a Sun Valley company should stand trial for allegedly funneling cyanide and untreated metals into the city sewer system.

Prosecutors think he should, saying that more than enough evidence was unveiled during a preliminary hearing last week to try 53-year-old Jack Meltzer on charges that his electroplating firm, Quality Processing Co., illegally channeled poisonous waste through a pipe connected to the sewers.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Robert Heflin, who oversees prosecutions alleging environmental crimes, said the dumping endangered the lives of company employees, local residents and workers in other businesses in the industrial area.

Eleven of the 17 charges against the Canoga Park resident are felonies, with each carrying a minimum, three-year sentence and possible $25,000 fine.

Meltzer, who co-owns the company with his wife, Myrna, refused to comment. Myrna Meltzer was not implicated in the case because Jack Meltzer is the on-site manager at the facility.

The allegations arose last year after the Los Angeles Bureau of Sanitation found untreated levels of cyanide and hazardous levels of zinc and chrome near the firm during a routine sewer inspection. The chemicals are used by the company in the manufacturing of metal parts that are sold to aerospace firms.

According to investigators, the biggest danger was the possibility that the zinc cyanide being released into the system would turn into a potentially lethal gas.

Meltzer has blamed the contamination on an employee who Meltzer says acted on his own when he dumped the raw chemicals. But the employee, who testified during the preliminary hearing last week in Los Angeles Superior Court, says Meltzer forced him to perform the illegal disposal, saying he could not afford to do it legally.

Meltzer’s attorney, Barry Groveman, said, “Things are not always what they seem,” and he hinted that there may have been violations of his client’s rights in the investigation.

“I don’t know if [the judge] will throw out all the charges. That would be Herculean,” Groveman said. “But I expect some surprises.”

The case is among several illegal dumping cases popping up in the San Fernando Valley. According to experts, electroplating companies are some of the worst offenders because they use and house potentially dangerous chemicals.

Heflin said the public may not hear about the number of dumping cases because some result only in misdemeanors or fines after the Sanitation Bureau finds violations. Meltzer’s case, he said, was among the most serious because of the high levels of chemicals found in the sewers and the presence of people nearby.

Meltzer’s case reflects the financial dilemma business owners face when getting rid of waste. Instead of paying haulers, whose fees are rising, many are dumping chemical waste into the sewer, authorities said.

“When people find themselves in an economic squeeze, they will find ways to cut corners,” said Chuck Ellis, a spokesman for the Los Angeles County Storm Watch Program, which monitors storm drains for illegal dumping.

Los Angeles Police Officer Wayne Carson, an environmental crimes investigator for the department, said companies usually either pay outside contractors to haul away the waste or purchase often-expensive equipment to chemically treat the waste on site so it is no longer hazardous.

Despite those alternatives, Carson said, the issue still boils down to taking responsibility for paying what’s necessary for safe disposal.

“A lot of people just don’t care once it’s out of their hands,” Carson said. “They don’t think of the long-term effects of the dumping.”