Toxics Regulators Doctor Results of Investigation To Avoid Admitting Wildomar Residents Poisoned, Says Consumer Watchdog

SANTA MONICA, Calif., April 8, 2014 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A new report released today by leading environmental advocate Penny Newman and residents of the poisoned Wildomar community shows that state toxics regulators doctored data in a preliminary investigation of the Autumnwood housing complex to avoid pinpointing what has poisoned the Riverside County residents and skip any cleanup, Consumer Watchdog said today.

"State toxics regulators have shown by their actions that they don't want to open up a Pandora's Box where they might have to admit that more than one community in the state has been built on land contaminated with dangerously high levels of toxins that are making people sick," said Consumer Advocate Liza Tucker.

"The situation that Wildomar residents find themselves in is a result of bureaucratic bumbling, disingenuous lip service, and a massive cover-up," said Penny Newman, Executive Director of CCAEJ in the report.

The report, American Dream or Toxic Nightmare, details deaths in the complex, and illnesses among residents from chemically induced pneumonia to lupus. Several of 61 families were forced to abandon their homes and move.

Concerned Neighbors of Wildomar and Penny Newman prepared the report in response to the draft results of an investigation drawn up by the Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC). The report says that the DTSC manipulated what data was gathered and how it was counted in order to assert that the soil and water at the complex are clean when regulators' own test results show otherwise.

For a link to American Dream or Toxic Nightmare, see: http://www.consumerwatchdog.org/resources/americandreamortoxicnightmare.pdf

For a link to the DTSC's preliminary results of its investigation of Wildomar, which also relied on input from the South Coast Air Quality Management District and water regulators at the Department of Public Health, see:
http://www.consumerwatchdog.org/resources/dtscwildomardraftreport.pdf

Among the findings of American Dream or Toxic Nightmare:

• Toxics regulators say they found no evidence of chemicals below the housing tract, suggesting that the cause might be the air inside homes. But their own test results show chemicals were found in the groundwater, soil, and soil gas in concentrations up to 1,000 times higher than in homes.
• Toxics regulators say there is no evidence of soil contamination. In fact, both independent and DTSC testing shows that Autumnwood is laced with hundreds of toxic chemicals, including chlorinated hydrocarbons, petrochemicals, metals, and pesticides, all of which can cause injury, illness, and death.
• Toxics regulators say shallow groundwater is not a source of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) or toxic chemicals that easily gasify. In fact, testing shows the groundwater contains many manmade VOCs, including benzene and formaldehyde.
• DTSC manipulated data, sometimes using more conservative risk thresholds for contaminants recommended by the state, and sometimes arbitrarily setting higher thresholds for toxic compounds.

There are several possible causes for the pollution, according to the report by Newman and the Wildomar community. Among them:

• Illegal dumping of toxic soil and other debris from underground gas station storage tank cleanups and an illegal auto dismantling yard.
• Contaminated soil used to level the complex prior to construction that was brought in from a wastewater treatment plant.
• Crossed water lines that could be feeding the community non-potable recycled water—something that the Department of Public Health's water regulation division refused to investigate despite test results that indicate the water is not potable. (The CDPH drinking water program is being reassigned to the State Water Resources Control Board.)

Newman and Tucker said the state must extensively reform the way it regulates toxins by firing officials who violate the public trust, creating an independent environmental watchdog, training doctors on chemical exposure and human health effects, and granting full autonomy for the DTSC Office of Criminal Investigations. The unit is the only one in the California EPA with sworn peace officers on staff.

"The fact of the matter is that we had unbridled development in this state before the economic crash," said Tucker. "The DTSC's cleanup division is responsible for any manmade, toxic ripple effects. For state regulators to turn a blind eye, and worse, to claim nothing is there, borders on criminal, and will come back to haunt them as more communities report toxic poisoning."

Tucker said that if the state enforced existing environmental laws and collected stiff penalties, funds would swell to cover cleanups of such "orphan" sites where responsible parties are hard to identify.

For more about Wildomar, see the Consumer Watchdog report, Golden Wasteland, here:
http://www.consumerwatchdog.org/golden-wasteland-report

SOURCE Consumer Watchdog