Supervisors Limit Pay to El Toro Consultants
County supervisors refused Tuesday to pay any more than $100,000 this year to an engineering company hired by an environmental law firm that is advising the county on contamination issues at El Toro Marine Corps Air Station.
The subcontract calls for GeoSyntech Inc. of Irvine to review Navy documents detailing soil and water contamination at the base, which the Marines plan to turn over to the county by July 1999. The county wants to build a commercial airport at El Toro.
At issue are two long-closed landfills that never have been fully examined for hazardous waste.
Supervisors declined Tuesday to expand the agreement between GeoSyntech and McCutcheon, Doyle, Brown & Enersen to include physical testing of the landfills, which the Marine Corps and Department of Defense have refused to allow.
The agreement between the lawyers and the engineering firm was recently made public by Supervisor Todd Spitzer. He criticized county airport planners for allowing such a sensitive environmental review to take place without an open discussion before the Board of Supervisors.
County officials say the matter never was placed on a public agenda because it was considered a subcontract to the legal firm, which was hired in 1994. County Counsel Laurence Watson further said that any work by GeoSyntech is considered attorney work product, and that its findings wouldn’t be publicly disclosed.
Said Spitzer, “If you’re going to allow law firms to contract with subcontractors, and then invoke the attorney-client privilege, that has serious implications for us as policymakers.”
Chief Executive Officer Jan Mittermeier said the process was proper because the lawyers advising the county need expert advice to assess the potential liabilities at the base, particularly relating to the landfills.
The legal contract allows the firm to select its own subcontractors with county approval, which Mittermeier said means county counsel, not the Board of Supervisors.
Supervisor Tom Wilson agreed with Spitzer that the board should have been informed about the subcontract. Mittermeier said Spitzer learned of the subcontract in part through a briefing by county staff.
“This is not an attempt by staff to keep information from you,” she said.
