Firms Charge EPA Ads Are Dirty Pool

When he saw an advertisement inviting his former employees to help the U.S. government nail his company for environmental pollution, Bill Donahoe, owner of a truck-washing business, was astounded.

“I wondered what country I was living in,” Donahoe said. Surely, the United States of America would not solicit anonymous gossip from disgruntled ex-employees.

But there it was, an ad in English in the Los Angeles Times and in Spanish in La Opinion that listed 51 companies topped by the headline: “Ever Worked Here?” The ad invited those who had worked for the companies to ask themselves whether they had handled hazardous chemicals and waste and whether the waste was taken to the Operating Industries Inc. landfill in Monterey Park.

“Please call us!” the ad urged. “Your information can help us at this hazardous waste site.”

Terry Wilson, spokesman for the Environmental Protection Agency’s western region, said the EPA did nothing more than take the sort of action that attorneys routinely take when they place classified ads seeking witnesses to clients’ traffic accidents.

All of the information received by the agency will be carefully checked by investigators, he said, as part of an effort to put together a civil case against companies that shipped hazardous waste to the Monterey Park dump.

The EPA has reached an agreement with more than 100 companies to help pay for the initial phases of the toxic cleanup of the Operating Industries site by contributing $33 million in cash and $34 million in work. But no settlement has been reached with more than 50 other companies that are believed by the EPA to have shipped hazardous waste to the dump before it was closed because of environmental problems in 1984.

The settlements reached so far are only for the initial stages of the cleanup effort. The EPA will seek additional payments to continue the cleanup, which could eventually cost $200 million to $300 million.

A New Tactic

Wilson said the EPA spent $50,000 on the ads, which ran every other day for two weeks in The Times and La Opinion. He said the ads were a new tactic, never before used by the EPA in any of its regions.

The tactic was used in this case, he said, because the agency needs more information about waste shipments to the Monterey Park site. Some of the targeted companies claim that their waste was not hazardous, but lack documents to support that claim, he said.

Wilson refused to say how many calls had been elicited but said: “We had a very good response--better than expected.”

He said he also “heard from a couple of senior vice presidents who were very agitated,” about their companies being named in the ad.

Roy Leach, owner of Leach Oil Co. in Compton, said the EPA used a “very low-life tactic,” giving his company and others named in the ad a black eye by implying that they were in trouble with the EPA for wrongdoing.

Actually, his company, an oil recycler, did no more than send waste to a dump that was licensed by government agencies to receive it, he said.

Under federal law, companies that produce hazardous waste are liable for it even after they have legally disposed of it. Thus, the EPA is trying to identify all of the companies that shipped hazardous waste to the Monterey Park dump and force them to share in the cleanup.