Buried Toxics Unearthed at Anaheim Paint Factory : Pollution: Anonymous informant tells where to find decayed chemical drums. Firm was charged two years ago in one of the worst illegal dumping cases in county history.

ANAHEIM —  Three decayed chemical drums and soil soaked with toxic chemicals were dug up Friday at a paint manufacturing plant by investigators who were tipped to the buried waste by an anonymous informant.

County, city and state officials have suspected illegal dumping at the W. C. Richards Co. plant, in an industrial area of northern Anaheim, since 1990, but they found no evidence until the informant called the district attorney’s office and identified the site where the wastes were buried.

The company had been charged two years ago with violations that county officials called one of the most serious illegal dumping cases in the county’s history. The company allegedly disguised large amounts of chemical waste in sawdust and threw it in regular trash for at least 2 1/2 years.

In that case, the company pleaded no contest to one felony count and paid a $250,000 fine. Its former vice president, Marion Bruce Hale of Brea, is scheduled to stand trial March 16 on felony charges.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Gerald Gordon Johnston said he is investigating Friday’s discovery to determine whether to press new criminal charges against the company.

Richards Co. officials declined Friday to comment.

The drums appeared to have been buried for at least 10 years, Johnston said.

The Anaheim plant has gone through a change of management in the last two years. Since then, “the company has been extremely cooperative,” Johnston said. “They footed the bill for today’s activity and have done everything they could to assist us in the discovery of these materials.”

County officials said it is rare for a company to bury waste on its own land, although spillage and polluted soil at industrial sites is often found.

State and city authorities are especially worried because the county’s ground-water basin, used for drinking supplies, is vulnerable in that area because of loose, sandy soils.

Kip Kinnings, an investigator in the district attorney’s environmental crimes unit who participated in the excavation, said parts of three 55-gallon drums were found, some with no lids and partial sides.

He said a two-foot layer of the soil was extremely saturated, and deeper soil was striped with some chemicals.

The drums “were rusted through,” said Bob Hirst, operations division chief of the Anaheim Fire Department. “Any liquid inside has been released into the soil.”

County Health Care Agency officials determined that the waste was chlorinated hydrocarbons, which are toxic, carcinogenic solvents that move through soil easily. The exact chemicals will be identified through further tests.

Wells will be drilled to determine whether ground water has been contaminated. For several years, water officials have tried to trace the sources of industrial solvents detected in many city drinking wells in northern Anaheim, southern Fullerton and Orange.

The Richards Co., at 1116 Olive St., is close to one well that has been polluted with toxic solvents, but officials from the state’s regional water board said they do not know whether the chemicals, widely used by industry, came from the paint plant.

“There is a well within half a mile of here impacted by solvents,” said Bruce Paine, an associate engineer with the Regional Water Quality Control Board. “But we’re not pointing the finger at W. C. Richards at the present time.

“Gravity could get it there,” he said. “Chlorinated solvents are extremely mobile.”

Wearing full protective suits and respirators, teams used a backhoe and shovels Friday morning to remove concrete and dig into the ground. After a short time, they came across the drums.

“Anytime that we suspect an illegal discharge that may reach the water table, we are extremely concerned,” Hirst of the Fire Department said. “There is a compelling need to react quickly.”

Although some odors were released during the excavation, the fumes were controlled by foam. Air monitoring devices did not detect hazards to neighboring businesses, Hirst said.

The excavation team was hired by the Richards Co. and overseen by the Fire Department, which stood ready to evacuate the area if necessary.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Johnston said the company dug up part of its lot about seven months ago, looking for drums that county officials suspected had been buried. But nothing was found until the informant isolated the location.

The tipster was not the same person who alerted the county to the company’s illegal disposal two years ago, he said.

W. C. Richards Co., which owns three U.S. manufacturing plants and has annual sales of about $10 million, has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on monitoring wells, excavations and other work to resolve environmental problems.

A W.C. Richards Chronology April, 1990: An anonymous tip prompts the county’s toxic-waste strike team to raid W.C Richards Co. in Anaheim. The investigation reveals that the company mixed chemical waste from its paint-manufacturing operation with sawdust, and then topped off the sludge with common trash before it was dumped at the Brea-Olinda Landfill.

September, 1990: Richards Co. and Vice President Marion Bruce Hale are each charged with five felony counts of illegal disposal of hazardous waste. Hale allegedly directed employees to disguise the substance and dump it as regular garbage over at least a 2 1/2-year period. Hale is fired.

January, 1991: The company pleads no contest to one felony charge and pays a fine of $250,000, one of the highest environmental penalties on record in the county. Hale still faces criminal charges.

February, 1992: Another anonymous tip leads officials to three decayed drums of hazardous waste buried at the company. Soil is contaminated. The site is just half a mile from a city drinking water well tainted with toxic solvents.

Researched by JANICE L. JONES / Los Angeles Times