Barrel of Motor Oil Proves Costly

An Oxnard auto-racing buff who was fined nearly $10,000 and put on three years probation after a barrel of his motor oil was found abandoned says the case was overblown.

Brad Rod, who this week pleaded guilty to a charge of not having the 55-gallon drum of oil properly documented for hazardous disposal, said he had paid a man $25 to get rid of the waste.

But the barrel was found abandoned in May, less than a mile from a rented Ventura garage where Rod works on two stock cars and a “midget” sprinter.

Rod said he hired the hauler in good faith.

“I live at the beach and I don’t have room for anything here, so I do it at the garage,” the 42-year-old Rod said Friday. “[Law enforcement officials] went into this as if I was some waste-producing business that was trying to skirt the rules. If I was doing this at home, none of this would have happened. The drum didn’t leak, I didn’t put it anywhere and my only crime is I paid a man in good faith to take it.”

According to prosecutors, though, Rod knew better and got off easy.

The state requires that disposal of more than five gallons of hazardous material have a trail of paperwork called a manifest, Deputy Dist. Atty. Mitch Disney said Friday.

A manifest must include the name of who generated the waste, the type of waste, the quantity and the disposal location. Copies must be filed with the waste producer and hauler.

There was no manifest on the abandoned drum, and an identifying label on the drum had been sprayed with gray paint.

“In the interview with investigators, it was clear he knew this process should have accompanied hazardous waste,” Disney said. “The state treats these crimes seriously. Hazardous-waste crimes are not to be disposed of lightly.”

Disney said Rod was not able to identify the man he hired to haul away the waste.

The misdemeanor to which Rod pleaded carries a maximum fine of $25,000 and a year in prison. Disney said Rod received a minimum fine of $2,000, which was more than doubled with an additional state assessment of $17 for every $10 of fine.

The remaining $4,400 was tacked on to punish Rod for the costs of the three-month investigation--staff hours, report writing, serving a search warrant, calling out hazardous-materials specialists and laboratory testing.

“Our position is the people of Ventura County should not have to bear the costs of unlawful disposal of hazardous waste,” Disney said. “You wouldn’t expect most investigations to cost this much but . . . there was quite a bit of detective work done.”

In addition to the $9,854.59 in fines and probation, Rod was sentenced to 60 hours of community service.

Crime-lab testing revealed the name of the company that sold Rod the drum, and a county employee from the hazardous-waste division recognized the drum as matching one previously left outside Rod’s garage.

But Rod maintained late Friday that the penalty was excessive. “There was some real arm-twisting going on here,” he said. “They made an example out of me.”