D.A. to Join Waystation Investigations

The district attorney’s office said Monday it will launch its own investigation of the Wildlife Waystation, as federal and state agencies continue to probe alleged crowded and unsanitary conditions at the animal refuge above Tujunga.

John Paul Bernardi, chief of the environmental crimes unit for the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office, met for two hours with state Department of Fish and Game officials to determine if criminal charges should be filed against the sanctuary.

No decision was made, but Bernardi said his office would conduct an investigation. His is the fourth agency in recent months to investigate conditions at the 160-acre refuge in the Angeles National Forest. About 1,200 native and exotic animals live at the refuge.

State officials closed the facility to the public Friday and ordered director Martine Collette to stop accepting animals.

The state gave Bernardi a videotape allegedly showing employees washing animal waste into a nearby stream.

A recent inspection by the Department of Fish and Game also found that some Waystation pens were too crowded with animals, primarily chimpanzees and bears.

“The bottom line is the concern for the health of the animals and the people who live there,” said Sandi Gibbons, a spokeswoman for the district attorney’s office.

A U.S. Department of Agriculture representative confirmed Monday that the agency also is investigating the Waystation after a recent inspection found that the chimpanzee houses were not built to federal animal safety standards.

The Regional Water Quality Control Board, which accompanied the state officials on their inspection last week, is considering an order that would require Collette to clean up the areas where waste from cages has run into creeks, said Hugh Marley, unit enforcement chief with the control board.

The ranch is in its third and final year of a probation sentence ordered by a judge in 1998 for blocking a creek on the site.

Colette said she will appeal to the state for exceptions to animal pen regulations so she can continue to accept animals at the refuge.

“There is no business, no operation,” Colette said Monday.

“We are asking the board for exceptions for specialized cages so we can continue. You cannot fix what you don’t have the money to fix.”

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Members of the Waystation’s board of directors said Monday the Department of Fish and Game has not told them what they need to do to bring the refuge into compliance.

“The first set of data to be addressed are the exact nature of the problems,” said Michael McDaniel, a board member who serves as the Waystation’s legislative counsel. “But whatever those problems are, they will be addressed.”

The state ordered the Waystation to stop public tours, showing any animals publicly, accepting animals and releasing effluent--including animal feces and urine--into Little Tujunga Wash, and to “begin a process which will result in a substantial and permanent reduction in the population of animals at the Wildlife Waystation.”

“But they have not quoted anything specifically--like on blank blank, you did not blank blank,” said Bob Wenners, business administrator for the Waystation and a board member.

Wenners said the closure is problematic because this is baby season and stray or injured baby animals have nowhere else to go.

Colette said Monday that the state’s orders were making sanitation problems worse because regulators barred her from using water hoses or dumping any water onto the ground. “We have pens up here that need to be emptied and cleaned,” she said. “The animals need to be cleaned. They’re telling us we can’t do it.”

In 1988, the county Health Department cited the Waystation for unclean conditions in an employee encampment where about 70 employees lived.

The mobile homes had no sewage disposal system, and waste flowed directly to the ground from pipes connected to toilets, according to citations.

Last year, USDA animal care inspectors found 30 rats in a kitchen used to prepare meals for the animals and discovered animal injuries, including the fatal fall of a sedated chimpanzee, which had not been properly documented by Waystation staff members.