Recycler Cited for Toxic, Radioactive Leaks

A metal recycler is leaking a toxic chemical into valuable coastal wildlife habitat and has released radioactive substances that may have reached a storm drain that empties into the Pacific, according to state regulators.

Citing sloppy housekeeping, state water quality officials investigating the plant said they issued a notice to Halaco Engineering Inc. on Monday for six types of violations, which were discovered during two inspections last summer.

The infractions focus on shortcomings in the company’s defenses to prevent contaminants escaping from heaps of slag on its property and entering the environment. This enforcement action is just the latest in a series of complaints against the recycler.

Although the health risk appears minimal, the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board is moving swiftly to bring the company into compliance. Halaco is under orders to prepare a cleanup plan within 30 days or face penalties of up to $10,000 for each day per violation, said Wendy Phillips, chief of enforcement and remediation for the water quality board.

“There is no significant human health risk,” Phillips said. ‘We want to evaluate it and be sure the public is not exposed to radioactivity.”

Of more immediate concern is a discharge of ammonia-laced water that officials say is flowing into wetlands at Ormond Beach, a magnet for migratory birds who use the site to dine upon fish and invertebrates.

The discharges flowing from the east side of the waste pile contain concentrations of ammonia known to be toxic to fish and wildlife, according to a letter the water board sent to Halaco on Monday.

“We take protection of those wetlands very seriously,” Phillips said. “We’re very concerned about those ammonia levels because they are harmful to aquatic life, but there’s not a public health risk from those levels.”

Dave Gable, environmental compliance manager for Halaco, downplayed any danger posed by the contamination, and promised full cooperation with investigators, although he contested some of the allegations.

“As far as we know, we are complying with the discharge requirements,” Gable said. “We would never knowingly violate these regulations. Halaco takes any violation very seriously, and we are going to comply with the rules that are imposed on us.”

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Operating at the same 40-acre site in Oxnard since 1970, Halaco takes aluminum and magnesium scrap, melts it down and recycles it. Millions of pounds of soda and beer cans--as well as Volkswagen engine blocks and parts of Chevrolet Suburban steering wheels--move through the foundry each year. Waste byproducts are piled in a large heap on the site, which has three large waste-water ponds. The company employs 50 people and annual sales exceed $10 million, Gable said.

“We consider ourselves an asset to the environment rather than a detriment. We recycle and save energy,” Gable said.

The company, which operates in one of the most ecologically prized regions of the county, has come under scrutiny many times before by various regulators policing nuisance and pollution concerns.

In 1992, the company paid a $3,500 fine for failing to accurately report use of ammonia, which is used to treat other chemicals. Later that same year, a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency report identified heavy metals leaking from Halaco into Ormond Beach.

Two weeks ago, the Ventura County Air Pollution Control District, responding to a citizen complaint, issued a nuisance violation to Halaco when an inspector confirmed foul, metallic-tasting odors in the air over south Oxnard, said Keith Duval, manager of the compliance division at the air district. The toxics branch of the California Environmental Protection Agency is also investigating the company.

“They are a source of frequent complaints,” Duval said.

Controversy surrounding the company comes at a particularly sensitive time when community leaders are pursuing a delicate balancing act to save Ormond Beach and promote commercial development in the area. Ormond Beach is the largest remaining tract of undeveloped coastline in the county.

While California has lost more than 75% of its coastal wetlands, endangered species such as the tidewater goby fish, California least tern and the light-footed clapper rail, another bird, frequent the 1,404-acre Ormond Beach area.

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Last June, a panel of experts convened by Oxnard concluded that protection of the wetlands at Ormond Beach should be a top priority. However, the Urban Land Institute report declared Halaco incompatible with the planning group’s long-term vision for the area and recommended it be relocated.

“I’m not the least bit surprised [by pollution concerns],” said Roma Armbrust of the Ormond Beach Observers, a local environmental group. “Nothing they would find there would surprise me. In the grand plan of going forward with environmental protection of Ormond Beach, Halaco has to go.”

Inspectors from the water quality board who visited Halaco on Aug. 19 and 25 reported half a dozen types of violations of the company’s waste discharge permit, which is under review.

They include ammonia-tainted water seeping out of the waste pile; sediments discharged to the wetlands; a breached waste-control dike, which was subsequently repaired; clear-cut erosion channels coated with gray waste material leading from the plant to an industrial drain; lack of sumps and drains to collect seepage; and radioactive materials in two locations.

“They obviously have noncompliance issues,” said Dennis Dickerson, executive officer of the water quality board.

A sample from the waste material pile collected near a seep last summer contained thorium 232 and 238 at concentrations 20 times greater than levels typically found in the local environment. Nearby, a sample collected from the bank of the industrial drain showed the same two radionuclides in concentrations 100 times greater than background levels, according to Monday’s violation notice.

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It is unclear whether the radioactive material may have escaped the Halaco property, and more tests are being conducted, said Rick Vergets, associate engineering geologist for the water board. He added that although those levels appear high, they were not high enough to require protective equipment to be worn during the collection process, and the water quality board believed the risk was low enough that it waited six months before issuing the violation notice.

Gable said magnesium thorium, a radioactive substance, was once present at the plant, but is no longer in use.

“Halaco has not had anything to do with that material in decades,” Gable said. “We may have taken a very small amount, but that was more than 25 years ago.”

He added that the radioactive material found by inspectors is “not our material,” and said that it may come from an old landfill Halaco is built upon. He did not elaborate.

Regulators are scheduled to meet Feb. 23 with company officials to discuss a schedule for cleanup and possible fines.