Taxpayers Pick Up Tab for Mistake Over Toxic Soil

SACRAMENTO — Taxpayers are on the hook for nearly $1 million after a brief bout of government confusion over soil scraped up to make way for San Francisco’s new baseball stadium.

An item inserted into the state budget days before it passed last month dedicates $977,000 to Waste Management Inc. The giant garbage corporation was forced last summer to remove tons of the lead-tainted soil from its Alameda County landfill after state authorities reclassified the soil as hazardous.

Waste Management Inc., a major political donor, says that it deserves the money because the state Department of Toxic Substances Control reversed itself four days after declaring the soil safe for a city landfill. In the meantime, 350 truckloads of the soil reached the landfill, which is about 50 miles east of San Francisco.

“This was an incredibly disruptive situation at the landfill and it was very costly,” said S. Kent Stoddard, Waste Management’s lobbyist in Sacramento. “And there was absolutely no dispute that a mistake was made and that the mistake was costly to Waste Management.”

A claim submitted by the company to the state Board of Control, which reviews legal claims against the state, lists $977,000 in expenses, including $45,621 in legal costs, most of that to compile the claim. The board rejected the claim in April, advising the company to resolve the complex issues in court.

Rather than take the state to court, Waste Management figured that it would save time and legal costs by seeking redress through the budget, Stoddard said. Because state officials admitted that they erred in their initial classification, all six legislators on the Budget Committee sympathized with the company, he said. The committee voted unanimously to allocate $977,000 for Waste Management in the budget.

The money will go first to the state Integrated Waste Management Board, which will review Waste Management Inc.’s invoices and receipts before releasing the money.

The more than $220,000 that Waste Management reported donating to various California politicians in 1999 included at least $2,000 each to Assemblywoman Carole Migden (D-San Francisco) and state Sen. Jim Brulte (R-Rancho Cucamonga), both of whom voted to budget the money for Waste Management. Neither lawmaker could be reached for comment.

The soil saga began in the spring of 1999, as the San Francisco Giants rushed to finish Pacific Bell Park before opening day on April 11. The Giants asked Toxic Substances Control to test the soil excavated for the playing field.

On Feb. 26, 1999, the officials wrote to the Giants that several tests indicated that the “nonhazardous” soils posed an “insignificant” threat to human health.

The Giants dispatched trucks to start hauling the soil to Waste Management’s landfill near Livermore, which also is the destination for San Francisco’s garbage. Meanwhile, said state spokesman Ron Baker, a scientist double-checking the laboratory results on the soil concluded that the lead in it was of a soluble form that might contaminate ground water. Under the acidic conditions of the landfill, rainwater might dissolve the lead and carry it to the aquifer below, he said.

On March 2, 1999, the department sent the Giants another letter, revoking permission to treat the soil as nonhazardous.

“I apologize for the misunderstanding,” wrote Robert D. Stephens, then deputy director of the toxic substances department, to Giants’ Vice President Jack Bair.

In the ensuing political furor about what to do with the soil, Alameda County officials, who control Waste Management’s permit to operate the landfill, ordered it gone.

Last July truckers hauled the soil to a hazardous-waste landfill--also owned by Waste Management--near Kettleman City in Kings County.

The Giants paid none of the extra costs of scraping up and moving soil from the Livermore landfill, said Bair. But he figures that the team paid at least an additional $1 million to have the rest of the soil hauled by train from San Francisco to a hazardous-waste dump in Utah.

“It came as a great surprise to us that the state decided to compensate Waste Management for the error,” he said, “because the Giants suffered as well.”

Team officials, Bair said, have not yet decided whether to seek compensation.