D.A. Seeks More Staff on Toxins

To bolster efforts at prosecuting owners of hazardous underground storage tanks, including some gas stations, the Orange County district attorney’s office will ask county supervisors today for more than $600,000 to add five staff members.

Strict new federal standards prompted the request, said Lance Jensen, a deputy district attorney in the environmental crimes unit. The office seeks two deputy prosecutors, two investigators and one clerk for the unit.

“When [the cases] trickle in, we handle them as best we can,” Jensen said. “But when you get a flood of them as a result of a new federal mandate, with our current staff, there’s no way we can absorb those in a timely fashion.”

Federal standards call for upgrading leak-prone, single-wall steel tanks and other equipment, and the deadline for complying passed in December. Prosecuting violators will greatly increase the caseload of the environmental unit, which has two attorneys and one investigator, Jensen said.

Service stations and chemical and aerospace companies use multiple underground tanks to store waste oils, petroleum products and other chemicals. Altogether there are 2,600 tanks at 900 storage facilities in the county.

Of the 900 sites, 60 failed to comply with the new requirements, and 23 of them were identified as being the least compliant, according to a county Health Care Agency memo. Prosecutors will work on those 23 cases first, Jensen said.

Ground-water contamination has been found from 438 tanks, but drinking water has not been polluted and there is no immediate health threat, Jensen said. He worries, though, that it could someday reach the aquifers supplying about 70% of the county’s drinking water.

Jensen said it is easier to negotiate fines with defendants than it is to “work out a long-term, structured cleanup, site inspection and a remediation program.” with defendants.

Jensen said fines are not his primary goal. “We want to make sure the problem is dealt with on a long-term basis.”