Cleanup Firm to Pay Penalty of $16,750

An environmental cleanup company has agreed to pay $16,750 to settle a civil complaint from the Ventura County district attorney’s office alleging the company scooped up hazardous waste from a luxury hotel in Santa Barbara and unlawfully dumped it in the Oxnard sewer system.

In a judgment filed Monday, Ecology Control Industries Inc. agreed to the civil penalties while denying any corporate liability in the mishandling and mislabeling of a dozen gallons of dry-cleaning solvent by a former employee.

That employee, Charles Thomas Hale of Camarillo, pleaded no contest last year to criminal charges of unlawfully transporting hazardous waste. He was fined $2,000, placed on three years’ probation and required to spend 40 hours stenciling “Don’t Dump, Drains to Beach” on county storm drains.

He was also fired after the incident for not following company policy, said Peter Goldenring, an attorney for Ecology Control Industries.

“The company takes these things very seriously and never had any problems before in 20-plus years of business,” Goldenring said. “It has a very, strong aggressive policy in terms of assuring full and complete compliance with environmental laws.”

The Four Seasons Biltmore Hotel in Montecito summoned Ecology Control Industries in 1993 to mop up a spill of perchlorethylene at the hotel dry-cleaning operation for its guests.

The hotel wanted the company also to flush an underground sewage line because officials were concerned it would contaminate the Montecito sewage treatment plant.

Prosecutors allege that the company’s employees sucked the hazardous chemicals into a vacuum truck, mislabeled the fluids as nonhazardous waste and dumped them in a line that flows into Oxnard’s sewage treatment plant.

“Perhaps it was just an unfortunate coincidence,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Mitchell Disney. “But it looks bad when they pick this stuff up from a beautiful hotel in Santa Barbara and dump it in Oxnard. Apparently, they thought no one would notice.”

Under state law, a company can be held legally responsible for the acts of its employees on duty.