Chemical Firm, Driver Face Criminal Charges

The Los Angeles city attorney’s office filed criminal charges Tuesday against a Long Beach chemical company and a truck driver for alleged violations of laws regulating the transportation of hazardous materials.

Mike Qualls, a spokesman for the city attorney’s office, said Shrader Chemical Co. Inc. was charged with seven misdemeanor violations and that driver Charles Ray Ham, 31, faces two misdemeanor counts.

The case stemmed from an incident that occurred Feb. 6, 1995, on the northbound Golden State Freeway near the Simi Valley Freeway junction in Mission Hills, Qualls said.

An officer from the LAPD Environmental Crimes Unit spotted the stake-bed truck being driven by Ham with a container marked “oxidizer,” but without the required placard for that type of hazardous material, authorities said.

After pulling the truck over and inspecting the cargo, the officer found that the truck was carrying oxidizers and corrosives, Qualls said.

Shrader Chemical is charged with failing to properly secure the cargo against movement within the truck, failing to mark and label several containers of hazardous materials and failing to have the proper shipping name, hazard class, identification numbers and other required information on shipping papers.

Ham is charged with failing to properly secure the truck’s cargo and keeping the shipping papers in an improper location.

Arraignment is scheduled for Feb. 22 in Los Angeles Municipal Court.

Shrader Chemical faces fines of $1,000 per complaint while Ham faces equal fines or one-year jail terms for each of the charges against him.