Polluter Gets a Slap on the Wrist

* Re “Wetlands Polluter Sentenced,” Dec. 23:

The sentence of “midnight dumper” Richard Ogle Sr. is a slap in the face to all who work to clean up the environment.

This person was educated, trained, certified, bonded and licensed to dispose of hazardous waste. During this educational process he was continually reminded of moral and legal responsibilities concerning the deadly nature of the cargo entrusted to him and its effects when released into the environment.

Ogle had absolutely no doubt that dumping contaminated oil into a storm drain was not only morally wrong and illegal but would cause severe ecological damage.

When he made his decision to dump waste into a storm drain, his motivation was pure and simple. Greed. He chose to save himself a $150 fee and the time driving to a recycling center.

To sentence this man to a $20,000 fine when the cost of the investigation and cleanup will run upward of $500,000 is to shift the burden of his decision to the taxpayers.

His business, home, cars and personal savings should be seized as reimbursement.

When Orange County voters wake up and find that their beaches are dead from a self-induced overdose of chemical and fecal pollution and the tourist industry that drives our local economy has vanished, they will start to understand the desirability factor supporting the value of their real estate is gone.

The Orange County bankruptcy will be a mere footnote in comparison to the economic crash that will follow enforcement of the real estate disclosure laws.

MICHAEL HAZZARD

Executive Board Member

Clean Aliso Creek Assn.

Mission Viejo

* Yes, the wetlands polluter should be punished, but it seems to me the bigger polluters will be those that want to build 1,200 homes within yards of the Bolsa Chica wetlands.

The runoff from domestic yards is one of the great polluters of our ocean waters. Pesticides and fertilizers are at or near the top of the list of things that are destroying our environment.

Much of the damage we do to our Earth is by accident or ignorance. But to allow building next to what Deputy Dist. Atty. Lance Jensen properly called the “crown jewel of wetlands here in Orange County” is unconscionable.

Homes next to the largest wetlands remaining in Southern California will every single week leech as much poison as the polluter dumped.

The federal government, the state and the citizens have an obligation to save this jewel before we find ourselves saying, “Remember when. . . .”

BILL HALPIN

Huntington Beach

* After pleading guilty to illegally dumping 200 gallons of oil into the Bolsa Chica wetlands in December 1998, Richard Ogle Sr. was fined, jailed for 45 days and given what amounts to five weeks of community service.

However, that will not restore or make better the unchangeable damage to Bolsa Chica, one of the few remaining pristine wetlands that we have struggled to preserve.

We Bolsa Chica supporters fear that although Ogle has given up his license to handle hazardous waste, his son has taken over the business.

Will he have learned the seriousness of this misdeed or see that the state considers a slap on the wrist to be justice?

BABETTE R. MAYER

Fullerton