EPA Tars All Firms With the Same Brush

* I expected better from The Times. “EPA Drops 1,400 From Superfund Inquiry in Valley” (Aug. 26) left me wondering if the writer really understands Superfund and how this law defines polluter. He seems to have bought into the EPA’s view that polluters are paying for cleanup. If my company is a polluter, then so is virtually every other business and individual in the country.

Waste oil generated by Baldwin during the 1960s--maybe 3,500 gallons from servicing vehicles--was routinely picked up by waste oil recyclers and taken to a storage tank in Sacramento. From there, some of it may have gone to the Purity Oil Superfund Site where it was formulated into “new” motor oil.

We were notified in June, 1992, that we were a potentially responsible party at the Purity site and may be held liable for as much as 78,000 gallons of waste oil material.

It was pointless to argue my case to EPA. They just told me to hire an attorney. I joined a defense group of “potentially responsible parties” and my legal fees and other costs to date have been more than $75,000.

I am just totally frustrated with this whole thing. It’s the damnedest nightmare. We could have legally flushed the waste oil down the storm sewer or just dumped it in the nearest creek. But no, we were environmentally responsible and gave the oil to a recycler. But we now have to help pay for this mess. They have taken my constitutional right of equal protection under the law and just destroyed it.

JAMES A. GAUMER

Chico

Gaumer is the president of Baldwin Contracting Co . Inc. in Chico .