Investigators search flood control office RIVERSIDE COUNTY: The warrant was triggered by a tip from the Army Corps of Engineers.
01:28 AM PDT on Wednesday, August 4, 2004
By LISA O'NEILL HILL, JENNIFER BOWLES and DOUGLAS QUAN / The Press-Enterprise
Riverside County district attorney's investigators served a search warrant at the Riverside County Flood Control and Water Conservation District on Tuesday, about a year after receiving information from the Army Corps of Engineers about possible hazardous material polluting the Santa Ana riverbed, authorities said.
About 20 investigators went to the flood control office in Riverside about 9:30 a.m. and spent the day collecting and reviewing documents and records, Riverside County Chief Deputy District Attorney Creg Datig said.
Datig said he could not specify what hazardous material may have been involved but said, "It's not a situation where life or limb is currently jeopardized."
Datig said investigators were looking for records or documentation that would give them information about potential exposure in the river or flood control channels.
"We proceeded to conduct an investigation, which is ongoing and in an effort to determine the nature and extent of possible exposure as well as whether there may be exposure elsewhere in the county, we today served a search warrant at the flood control district and received the full cooperation of management," he said.
Dusty Williams, the general manager and chief engineer of the district, said he did not know what authorities were looking for, but said it appeared investigators were interested in "environmental hazards." Investigators had a warrant to search all seven buildings at flood control headquarters on Market Street, said Williams.
Williams said he got a call last week from an investigator asking to set up an appointment. The investigators took files, downloaded information from servers and took at least one computer, Williams said.
"If there are problems, we want to correct them," Williams said. "I wish we knew more."
"If there are hazardous materials, we need to get them out for water quality purposes and move on correcting whatever the problem is," Williams said.
The Santa Ana River is the main artery of the Inland area's watershed and provides water to 5 million people in Riverside, San Bernardino and Orange Counties.
Supervisor Marion Ashley said he was told that the district attorney's office was interested in a barricade on Main Street along the Santa Ana River levy that is made of large hydraulic cylinders.
"It's possible those cylinders still contain hydraulic fluid that could leak into the river and cause ground water problems. That's one of the things I've heard," he said. He said the flood control district did not know who authorized or conducted the work.
Greg Fuderer, a spokesman for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Los Angeles, declined to comment on the investigation.
The Santa Ana Regional Water Quality Control Board, which monitors and regulates pollution on the river, wasn't aware of the investigation, said Kurt Berchtold, the board's assistant executive officer.
Datig said it was difficult to say how long the investigation might take.
"What we're talking about is a review of records dating back anywhere from five to 10 years in some cases, certainly dating back at least six years. That's a lot of stuff to go through. ... Certainly, it will be a matter of weeks, perhaps months before we're able to analyze" it, he said.
"We're not exactly sure what situation we have here. It could be a situation where certain procedures and processes need to be reviewed but we will discover that once we go through the stuff," Datig said.
County spokesman Raymond Smith said the county has been working with the district attorney's office and will continue to cooperate. He said if something had happened, the county wanted to know how and why it had happened and takes steps to prevent it from reoccurring.
More than 200 employees work at the Riverside County Flood Control District. Many of them are engineers who work on dams, storm drains, channels and levees.
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by edball
Bookmarks