Water Officials Question Attorney’s Role

The law firm representing water companies negotiating for Aerojet General Corp. to pay a share of an estimated $200-million cleanup of the contaminated San Gabriel Valley aquifer is facing criticism because one of its attorneys also represents the defense giant.

Water officials said they were surprised last week when they received a letter written on behalf of Aerojet by an attorney from Nossaman, Gunther, Knox & Elliot--the firm that also represents their side in the dispute.

“It’s more than a faux pas having both sides represented by the same firm, whether it’s direct or at arm’s length,” said Ken Manning, president of the Upper San Gabriel Valley Municipal Water District.

The attorney who wrote the letter, Scott P. DeVries, said he is not involved in the San Gabriel Valley water pollution negotiations. He counsels Aerojet on environmental issues in Northern California, as well as insurance matters statewide. DeVries said the letter referred only to the company’s insurance coverage in connection with potential cleanup costs.

Officials of the Main San Gabriel Basin Watermaster, which manages the aquifer and hired the law firm in 1993, agree that DeVries’ work for the company poses no conflict of interest.

“Aerojet signed a waiver saying Nossaman would not represent it in environmental or Superfund matters in the San Gabriel Valley. That gave us the reassurance we needed,” said Carol Williams, executive officer for the watermaster, which regulates aquifer usage among local water purveyors.

But critics say that, at minimum, there is the appearance of a conflict of interest.

The vast aquifer in the San Gabriel Valley serves a million people and has been the subject of debate since the Environmental Protection Agency deemed it a Superfund site in 1984. Government tests five years earlier had found volatile organic compounds in some wells drawing from the aquifer.

In 1997, government tests found that a byproduct of rocket fuel--used by Aerojet after World War II--had seeped into the aquifer, doubling the estimated cleanup cost.

Aerojet and 10 other companies agreed to pay for treatment, but negotiations over the cleanup have dragged on for years. The EPA can only dictate that the water be treated, leaving local water officials to ensure that the aquifer is replenished. The San Gabriel Valley is one of the few spots in Southern California that relies heavily on underground water.

Cleanup negotiations heated up this week when the Water Quality Authority--which was created to coordinate the cleanup--sued Aerojet to repay the $1.6 million that the agency spent on a treatment plant that removes the rocket fuel component, called perchlorate.

The agency questioned DeVries’ letter, written on Nossaman stationery, which began: “We represent Aerojet General Corp. in connection with various matters pertaining to the ground water contamination in the San Gabriel Valley.”

DeVries said he was referring only to insurance coverage, and did not mean to imply that he was working on the cleanup negotiations.

DeVries’ letter notified the Water Quality Authority’s attorney, Rene Tatro, that he faced a potential conflict of interest because his partner had performed legal services for Aerojet. In addition, DeVries pointed out in the letter that an attorney at Tatro’s current firm was privy to confidential Aerojet documents and testimony from another case. Tatro would not comment for this story.