Little-Known List Casts a Taint on Polluters

In the halls of government and among its unwitting targets, it is known simply as The List.

Heeding a federal mandate, about 100 municipalities in California alone annually devote time and budget to compiling it. Soon thereafter, it appears word for word as a paid ad in daily newspapers large and small.

The List has some weight to throw around, most notably the threat of negative publicity. Government officials readily recount anecdotes of CEOs practically begging to have their companies removed from it, insisting that there must have been some mistake.

Despite all of the apparent fuss, few people will ever see The List, and the average citizen, for whose benefit it was created, probably has a firmer knowledge of the federal tax code.

Indeed, for examples of the sometimes byzantine methods of modern government, it doesn’t get much better than the List of Significant Noncompliant Industrial Users.

“What is it? Are we on it?” asked Michael Custer, general manager of Chatsworth Products, an employee-owned metal rack producer in the San Fernando Valley.

The answer lies in a 1978 package of federal Environmental Protection Agency waste-water regulations known as the Pretreatment Program. In response, about 1,500 public utilities in cities and counties across the country gather material for their area’s version of The List, which chronicles violations of environmental laws.

Any industrial user cited for a violation during the calendar year--for anything from discharging extremely hazardous materials into sewers to failing to submit paperwork--earns a place on The List.

Violators are cited by inspectors for municipal or other government agencies during regular visits, usually a handful per year. Chatsworth Products, for example, earned a place on the 1995 list for releasing excessive amounts of certain chemicals into the sewer system, city officials said.

But a close look at The List, say its critics and even its compilers--reveals its shortcomings.

It typically takes a year to assemble, so when the Los Angeles Bureau of Sanitation released the latest list in December, it was for offenses that occurred in 1995. Most of that list’s 50 companies have fewer than 100 employees and are located in the usual industrial hubs of the San Fernando Valley and less-populous corners of central Los Angeles.

Federal guidelines stipulate that The List be published in the largest newspaper in the waste-water utility’s area. In Los Angeles’ case, a 9-inch paid legal notice was taken out in the classified section of the Dec. 21 editions of The Times.

Although the law requires that the list be published--an acknowledged effort to shame companies into compliance--local, state and federal officials said they have no legal obligation to tell companies that they are on it. Nor must they ensure that The List reaches the public in a more accessible form than squint-inducing print in the back of a newspaper.

“We’d all like it to be a bigger, splashier ad,” said Keith Silva, who runs the EPA’s Pretreatment Program in the region that includes California. “But there are practical concerns.”

Even Lonnie Ayers, a city sanitation engineer who edits the Los Angeles list each year, wonders how effective it is. “This doesn’t have an impact on getting companies into compliance,” she said. “You want to be business-friendly, and yet also give the public a chance to scrutinize them. But I think it’s something the [federal] government should review.”

Officials at many companies say the government could at least tell them when they land on The List.

“We go hugely out of our way to deal with these issues,” said Custer of Chatsworth Products. “We deal with [city inspectors] regularly and have been thinking they’re happy as clams and that we’re in compliance.”

Frank Sampo, general manager of A & C Electronics, a Northridge manufacturer of personal computer circuit boards, had a similar reaction upon hearing that his company met the same fate as Custer’s.

“I wasn’t aware there was a list,” he said. “You’d think if there was a list, they’d notify the companies. If I was on the list, I’d like to know about it so that I could a.) do something about it, or b.) say I shouldn’t be on it.”

Calls to companies throughout Los Angeles and Wilmington yielded the same response. A spokeswoman for Continental Airlines, the Houston-based carrier whose Los Angeles International facility was the highest-profile entry on The List, said she had never heard of The List but that the company was trying to improve its environmental performance.

Silva blames businesses for the communications gap.

“It’s a good tool,” he said of The List. “The decision to publish would not be based on one or two visits. . . . These companies are probably the worst performers. Perhaps they should be paying more attention to their environmental status. Maybe their lack of knowledge about The List indicates a general lack of awareness.”

Jim Kassel, Pretreatment Program coordinator for California, said The List has been a successful part of the program, especially in smaller communities. In his job at the State Water Resources Control Board in Sacramento, he deals with waste-water utilities as large as those in Los Angeles and as small as in Eureka, Oxnard and Thousand Oaks.

“Perhaps this particular requirement is more effective in smaller communities, where newspapers are smaller and people are able to look at things more carefully,” he said.

He recalled cases in which communities fighting habitual polluters have gone so far as to print The List on billboards around town, and said activist groups often await the annual publication and use it in brochures and fliers.

Environmental regulation has significantly cleaned up waste water in recent decades, according to Al Gray, deputy executive director of the Virginia-based Water Environment Federation, a nonprofit group that works with industry to enforce environmental standards. But The List seems to have little to do with that.

“The list doesn’t give you any indication of the whole picture,” Gray said.

“Very few people have a clue what the Pretreatment Program is. If they read the newspaper and see this list, that will mean very little to them. . . . A lot of activists don’t even understand that.”

The List’s ultra-low profile prompted a common response from companies asked about their inclusion in it. Following a lengthy explanation of the document’s purpose came a lengthy pause. Then: “Do you think you could fax me a copy of that? I don’t think I’ve ever seen that thing before.”