[CPEO-BIF] California "Toxic waste watchdog can be glacially slow"

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

Toxic waste watchdog can be glacially slow

The Department of Toxic Substances Control is supposed to use  
regulations, fines and the threat of legal action to protect the  
environment. But its oversight is often ineffectual.

By Jessica Garrison, Kim Christensen and Ben Poston
A LOS ANGELES TIMES INVESTIGATION
December 27, 2013

One summer Saturday in the Bay Area city of Richmond, nitric acid  
leaked from a tank at a metal plating company, forming a toxic cloud  
that floated over a neighborhood of small houses and stucco apartments.

"People were coughing. They were gasping for air," recalled Denny  
Larson, a community organizer who rushed to the scene. More than 125  
people were taken to hospitals.

The year was 1992.

Four years later, state regulators decided a study was needed to  
assess the extent of contamination from that and other releases of  
hazardous materials at Electro-Forming Co. Seven more years passed  
before the Department of Toxic Substances Control began the assessment.
...

For the entire article, see
http://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-toxic-oversight-20131226-dto, 
0,7127395.htmlstory#axzz2okUwXaRl

--

Lenny Siegel
Executive Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
a project of the Pacific Studies Center
278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org

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