Rialto may have a case against San Bernardino County in expecting it to help resolve the issue of perchlorate contamination polluting city wells. But it is going about the process of seeking compensation for its efforts entirely the wrong way.
Rather than suing the county once again, as it did last week, Rialto needs to gain the county’s cooperation in going after the real culprits – the companies that actually leaked the pollutant into the groundwater. And we don’t see how filing another lawsuit will achieve that salutary effect.
Having failed to get satisfactory results from a lawsuit it filed in 2004 against the county and 41 other entities, Rialto now has veered off on a sidetrack to go after the county alone in a lawsuit filed in state court. The city claims the county is in violation of a 1998 agreement to hold the city harmless in the county’s expansion of the Mid-Valley Sanitary Landfill in the north end of town. What that means exactly is up to legal conjecture, what with the county insisting it is providing clean water to residents, and the city insisting the county owes it for perchlorate-related costs so far.
But let’s remember, though the county bought the landfill, it
isn’t the one that did the dumping. And it’s beyond us why Rialto would want the county to take the fall, when the real bandits are getting away.
Whatever the case, it is city residents, whose water bills include a surcharge to fund the cleanup effort, who are paying the costs of the city’s inability to get the true polluters to pay the damages.
More to the point, perhaps, is the Santa Ana Regional Water Quality Control Board’s 2003 order to the county to investigate and clean up perchlorate contamination flowing from its property. That is what Rialto should be pressing with the county – not some new lawsuit, which remains a sideshow to the ongoing federal litigation.
The city’s initial lawsuit targets not only the county, but the U.S. Department of Defense and 40 corporations suspected of dumping the chemical used in the manufacture of fireworks and explosives into the groundwater decades ago. It is those companies that should be in Rialto’s, and the county’s, sights. It is those companies that should be paying the estimated $200 million to $300 million worth of cleanup and treatment costs, without leaving it to ratepayers to pony it up over the next 50 years.
We’d bet Rialto would have a lot better luck in pursuing that outcome, if it were to bring the county on board in seeking reimbursement from the companies at fault. Cooperation tends to work better than holding a stick over someone's head.
But neither is the county innocent. It needs to fulfill its obligations and stop playing an adversary role. Most important, it must step up to the plate to help Rialto recoup its losses. Let’s just say it’s for the sake of ratepayers more than it is Rialto’s.
Disagree? We’d like to hear from you. Write us at letters@dailybulletin.com.
BS Ranch Perspective:
This is the most insightful article that I have seen on this subject, and they seem to be more informed then the others that seem to just put the story out there! I have said that Ed Scott and Mr. Owens, Mr. Garcia all are in the wrong here. they need to sit at the table with the County Supervisors, and the County Lawyer's and Engineers along with the people that have the power in the county to figure out how to come to some kind of an understanding to which they are working together and not against each other on the Perchlorate situation. The Powers that Be in Rialto are making the Perchlorate situation Cost the City and County of Rialto & San Bernardino a whole lot more than it should! They better pull their suits and start paying their half, and shut up before the judge in the case makes the city responsible for the whole thing and walks away, leaving the city of Rialto, Owens, Garcia, Scott, Sampson, Hanson, Robertson and Vargas all pay the bill with the newly failed renewal of the Utility tax!! The city will be going backwards again, all at the cost of the people that I have been writing to get rid of, Owens, Gonzales, Scott, Sampson, and Robertson the city would be better off.
BSRanch
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