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| Friday, Oct 26 2007 10:40 PM
Last Updated: Friday, Oct 26 2007 10:48 PM
Kern County will step up its enforcement against a company that has not complied with orders to stop operating an illegal industrial waste dump over one of the county's major groundwater storage areas.
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Director of Environmental Health for the county, Matt Constantine, with soil and fluid samples from Hondo Chemical.
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Five months after the county cited Hondo Chemical, county officials still don't know what type of materials are in various piles and unlined pits on the Stockdale Highway property.
The Environmental Health Services Department has issued a $6,000 administrative fine against Hondo for not complying with a citation, which required the company to provide a list of the type and amount of materials it has taken in and the customers who supplied it. The company has also failed to supply an adequate cleanup plan.
Furthermore, county inspectors recently observed new liquid in ponds that had been emptied. The department now plans to seek a court injunction to prevent the company from accepting any more material, according to Matt Constantine, head of the county's Environmental Health Services Department.
In May, the county cited Hondo after it discovered the company had been illegally accepting and storing waste.
Photos taken by the county show the 36-acre site contains ponds filled with green and orange liquids, stockpiles of what appear to be fly ash and petroleum-laden dirt and various tanks -- some open to the air and some bearing the label "leak" -- containing unknown liquids.
Hondo's owner, Jess Karr, said none of the material is hazardous, and he's complying with the county's orders. He said most of the material is waste from local oil fields.
The information on the material Karr supplied to the county is inadequate and incomplete, Constantine said.
"We can't tell you what's there or what the damage is," Constantine said, adding it's still unknown if any of the material is hazardous.
The company, which creates soil amendments for farming, is not permitted to accept or store waste material, Constantine said.
The situation created a concern because the property sits over an area used for groundwater recharge and is close to another water storage district.
"Clearly, he's created an environment that's unsafe," Constantine said. "It's an immediate risk to groundwater, and it may be a risk to public health."
Karr said the ponds on the property are lined with clay to protect groundwater beneath.
"If there was any leakage, the (groundwater) will be removed and treated," he said.
He said liquid in the ponds is wastewater from oil-field production. The ponds' clay lining likely turned the water a dingy orange. He said algae had turned liquid in another pond green.
This is not the first time Hondo has been in trouble for illegally storing waste.
In 2000, the Kern County District Attorney's office sued the company for taking in potassium hydrosulfide, a hazardous compound used in connection with oil drilling, without the required permit.
Hondo had asked the state Department of Toxic Substances for permission to use the compound to create fertilizer, according to John Mitchell, a Kern County deputy district attorney who prosecuted the case, but the state agency said no. The state agency later discovered potassium hydrosulfide at the facility.
"Even though they had been told not to use it, they went ahead and did it," Mitchell said.
The case was settled in 2004, and Hondo paid $50,000 in penalties and attorney fees. The company was also put under a permanent court order to cease accepting hazardous materials.
The Hondo property was also the site of a massive explosion and fire at a biodiesel facility in 2006. The fire started when workers spilled methanol, a combustible substance.
Another fire started at the facility in August when sulfur ignited on a machine used to make large pieces of sulfur smaller, according to Kern County Fire Department. No one was hurt, and firefighters said the cause wasn't suspicious.