2 Face Felony Charges Over Toxic Wastes : Pollution: Both owner and manager of two Santa Ana electronics plants ignored repeated orders to clean up ‘very severe’ problem, prosecutor says.

SANTA ANA —  The owner and the manager of two electronics companies described as the most polluted industrial sites in Orange County are being prosecuted on 11 felony counts of illegally dumping and storing toxic waste, county prosecutors said Tuesday.

Large amounts of metallic and acidic chemicals were dumped at Griffin Electronics Inc. and Cedko Electronics Inc., where soil and cement is so contaminated that it has turned bright green, inspection records at the county environmental health office show.

The toxic waste at Griffin Electronics, at 2115 S. Hathaway St., was first detected by county health inspectors seven years ago. But the company has ignored repeated cleanup orders issued by the health office since early 1984, county health records show.

Mateo Ster, owner and president of the two Santa Ana companies, and James Earl Figlo, their manager, could each face up to six years in prison and fines of almost $1 million. They are scheduled to be arraigned next Tuesday on the charges, which were filed July 17.

“It’s a very severe situation that has been going on for a very long time, and that’s why we had to take such drastic action by filing 11 felony counts,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Chris Kralick, who is prosecuting the case.

“Given the aggravated nature of this case, we’ll be asking the judge for a state prison sentence.”

Ster and Figlo declined comment Tuesday.

Ster has a long record of toxic-waste violations at the two circuit board manufacturing plants, which are about 2 miles apart. Included are two misdemeanor convictions in 1988 that landed him in jail for a day.

County officials said they resorted to felony charges because Ster and Figlo for years have ignored warnings to clean up the mess, including a $54-million civil suit the district attorney’s office filed against Griffin Electronics two years ago. The companies also have refused to investigate how widespread the contamination is and whether it has reached ground water, county health records show.

County environmental health officials declined to comment Tuesday because of the pending criminal case, but in the past they have said the two plants are probably the most severely polluted industrial sites in Orange County. They said it is rare that chemicals are so concentrated that they discolor large amounts of soil and cement.

Officials don’t know how much was dumped or spilled. But the toxic chemicals involved, mostly copper and chrome, were found in soil samples in concentrations 60 times higher than the legal limit, Kralick said.

County inspectors in 1988 found waste at the Griffin plant so acidic that it ate through metal sewer pipes and oozed up in the soil and stained the parking lot, county inspection records show.

The felony charges stem from a June 7, 1989, raid on Cedko Electronics, 3002 Oak St., by the county’s environmental strike team and a follow-up Feb. 8 inspection. The team, coordinated by the district attorney’s office, is composed of officials from about 10 county and city agencies that investigate hazardous waste crimes.

Soil samples taken from the plant during the raid measured 147,000 parts per million of copper and 30,000 p.p.m. of chrome. Those are both about 60 times higher than the amount deemed hazardous waste, Kralick said.

The waste poses no immediate health threat unless workers or others come in direct contact with it, health officials said. If ingested, however, it can cause toxic poisoning and liver damage, and it may irritate the skin.

Officials want it cleaned up because it may eventually leak into Santa Ana ground water. Municipal wells supplying drinking water are about half a mile from the plants.

County health officials said that at least one 4-inch hole in the soil at Cedko where chemicals were dumped was plugged up with cement last year between inspections in an apparent effort to hide it from inspectors.

Kip Kinnings, an investigator for the district attorney’s office, said in a report that the company may have dumped the toxics illegally because legal disposal in special landfills is costly.

In late 1988, Ster served a day in jail and paid a $10,650 fine after pleading guilty to two counts of throwing hazardous waste in a trash bin and illegally hauling waste, allegedly to avoid detection by inspectors. He is still on probation for those misdemeanor violations.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Jerry Johnston said Ster has done no work to clean up Griffin Electronics despite the civil suit filed by prosecutors two years ago. He said the company hired a consultant who developed a plan, but no test wells have been dug or waste removed.

“We don’t even know how bad the contamination is or how much there is because they didn’t do the investigation they were supposed to,” Kralick said.

Since 1986, Ster has told health officials that he has financial problems and cannot afford the cleanup work, which probably will cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Under state law, the landowner, Hunsaker Development Co. in Irvine, can be forced to pay for cleanup if Ster cannot pay. The last resort is for county officials to ask the state to include the two sites on the state cleanup list, which means special state bond monies can be used.