COUNTY TO TAKE TOXICS : PITCHESS FINES TO BE WAIVED.

Byline: Laurence Darmiento Daily News Staff Writer

Seeking to avoid a fine of nearly $700,000 for violating state hazardous waste laws at the Pitchess Detention Center, the county has agreed to sponsor additional household toxics cleanups and produce environmental education videos.

The measures, expected to cost more than $400,000, are mandated under an agreement Los Angeles County entered into last year with the state Environmental Protection Agency's Department of Toxic Substance Control.

Signed in December by former Chief Administrative Officer Sally Reed, the consent decree escaped public notice until a disagreement erupted last month at a Board of Supervisors meeting over funding the videos.

The violations stem from the outdoor storage of some 2,600 containers of new and used paint, motor oil, grease and other automotive and mechanical fluids in a canyon at the jail complex. The substances were cleaned up in 1993, after being stored up to 10 years in some cases, officials said.

According to the decree, two dozen containers, including seven 55-gallons drums, were not closed, while 96 smaller containers were rusting and in poor condition, allowing some fluids to leak. A contractor soon is expected to begin testing the canyon for soil contamination.

``There was a potential danger. It was serious,'' said Joe Irvin, a spokesman for the Department of Toxic Substance Control. ``This was not a highly volatile combination of stuff, but you don't want it leaking out.''

The department had originally proposed fining the department nearly $900,000 for violating state toxics regulations, but in negotiations last year reduced that to $590,000 and agreed to waive the $91,000 cost of its own investigation, Irvin said.

In the consent decree, state officials also agreed to waive the entire fine if the county sponsored two countywide household hazardous waste cleanups and produced three educational videos on household wastes and storm-water pollution.

``I thought the fine was excessive, but I guess they wanted to get our attention, which they did,'' said Pitchess facilities director Roger Anderson, who discovered the storage problem when he was hired in 1991 and supervised the cleanup.

``If they wanted to go by the letter of the law it could have been astronomical. Technically they can fine you $10,000 a day for every violation, and we had all those containers.''

The majority of the unused fluids were military surplus donated to the department and stored in the canyon near the North County Correctional Facility since the early to mid-1980s, Anderson said.

Since that time, the canyon gradually became a depository for waste oil and other used automotive and mechanical fluids, he said. The substances were stored on 150 square feet of pavement.

The two countywide household waste cleanups are expected to cost $200,000, while the three videos will cost about $230,000, said Robert Kou, a supervising hazardous substance control scientist for the state.

The county already is scheduled to hold 20 cleanups over the next several years, and the two mandated in the consent decree will raise that number accordingly, Anderson said.

Two of the videos will be aimed at raising public awareness about household waste and storm-water pollution. A third will be designed to educate public employees about storm-water pollution.

State officials said the conditions in the consent decree are not unusual as they relate to local government violations of toxic-substance control laws; in addition, they go beyond a strictly punitive response.

``It's consistent with our obligation to encourage compliance (with) the laws,'' Irvin said. ``Southern California Edison once did an insert in their billings for a violation.''

The disclosure about the consent decree comes just months after the Sheriff's Department received widespread publicity over the dumping in another Pitchess canyon of toxic chemicals seized from drug labs.

The dumping, thought to have been done in the late 1970s by personnel from various law enforcement agencies with the department's consent, was discovered four years ago.

Initial tests indicate that more than a ton of highly toxic chemicals used to make the once popular drug PCP were dumped into 12-foot pits and have seeped into ground water.

The chemicals include sodium cyanide, ethyl ether and nearly a dozen other toxic compounds, but according to preliminary tests they are not threatening local wells.

Cleanup costs have been pegged as high as $50 million, though sheriff's officials expect it will not reach that amount. The department has not been fined for the dumping, but Anderson said fines could be imposed.

Sgt. Ron Spear, a spokesman for the sheriff, said the improper storage of toxic chemicals is a remnant of the past.

``The sheriff feels there are not continuing problems at the Pitchess rancho or anywhere else in the department,'' Spear said. ``Our management practices have been revised so these problems will not occur again.

``We have gone so far as to purchase special containers for hazardous storage materials in accordance with all applicable laws and regulations.''

The sheriff had asked the Board of Supervisors on April 18 to allow him to draw $205,000 from funds set aside for video arraignments of criminal defendants to produce the videos, but the request drew the ire of Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky.

Joel Bellman, a spokesman for Yaroslavsky, said the supervisor worried that using that money could mean later requests from the Sheriff's Department for additional money for the fund, in effect making other departments share in the judgment.

A measure to fund the videos has not been proposed.