Halaco Settles Suit Over Used Oil

An Oxnard metal-recycling plant has agreed to pay $150,000 to settle a lawsuit brought against it by the Ventura County district attorney’s consumer and environmental protection division over its disposal of used oil.

Halaco Engineering Co., without admitting guilt, agreed to a permanent change of disposal methods at its Ormond Beach smelting operation, which recycles magnesium scrap and waste.

Prosecutors said Halaco took used oil and grease from its trucks, bulldozers and other machinery and either added the material to the smelting furnace to reduce the natural gas needed to melt the magnesium or placed the material on scrap that went into huge industrial washers that discharged water into on-site settling ponds.

“They’re not burning used oil anymore. Used oil is very dirty, it often can have heavy metals in it,” Senior Deputy Dist. Atty. Mitchell Disney said. “It’s still a dirty operation, by nature, and if there’s anything our office can do to make it cleaner, within our authority, we will.”

Arthur Fine, a West Los Angeles lawyer who represents Halaco, said the company disagreed with the district attorney about whether state and federal regulations permitted the burning of used oil as a secondary source of energy.

Besides, Fine said the company agreed four years ago to treat its used oil as hazardous waste, to store it properly and dispose of it through registered haulers. So when the state attorney general and district attorney filed suit more than two years later, it caught the company by surprise, he said. Halaco, which seeks to reorganize under Chapter 11 bankruptcy, has long been under fire from environmentalists and government regulators.

The company was convicted last fall of polluting the air near its plant, placed on probation for three years and ordered to pay a $7,500 fine. Less than two weeks later, Halaco settled two lawsuits filed by environmental groups when it agreed to clean up a huge slag heap and install barriers to prevent further pollutants from contaminating air and water.

“My sense is that the permanent injunction -- if it takes care of the oil pollution and cleanup -- is a good idea,” John Buse of the Environmental Defense Center said about the district attorney’s settlement, which was approved Wednesday by Superior Court Judge Vince O’Neill.

Under the agreement, Halaco can make its payment over two years. Half goes to the state Department of Toxic Substances Control as civil penalties and to reimburse the agency for investigative and legal costs.

The other half will be split among various local agencies. The county will receive $40,000 in penalties, the D.A.’s office will collect $30,000, and the Oxnard Fire Department, which participated in the investigation, will get the remaining $5,000.