[One Tough Pressure]

Cleaning company settles lawsuit

By Glenn Chapman, STAFF WRITER The Oakland Argus

OAKLAND, CA -- An international specialty cleaning company accused of dumping wastewater in sewers running to Strawberry Creek in Berkeley settled a lawsuit last week by agreeing to pay fines and better monitor discharges.
Burlingame-based Coit Services is to hire an environmental compliance officer within 60 days and keep meticulous records of how its technicians dispose of dirty water accumulated during cleaning of carpets, draperies, upholstery and other items, according to settlement paperwork endorsed Wednesday by Alameda County Superior Court Judge Steven Brick.
Environmental health officers in Alameda and San Mateo counties are to have access to the records, the settlement mandates. Coit also must pay$42,500 in civil penalties.
Coit entered into the settlement the same day Alameda County Deputy District Attorney Susan Torrence filed a lawsuit charging Coit van operators, referred to as technicians, of dumping wastewater in a storm drain near the Foothill Housing Complex on the University of California, Berkeley, campus.
The suit listed four times in May 2002 that university employees noticed foul discharge in Strawberry Creek and tracked the contamination back to hol-ding tanks in the Coit vans.
The van effluence was harmful to fish, plant and bird life, and dumping it in the campus storm drain system may have been an ongoing practice, Torrence wrote in the filing.
Coit interviewed the van technicians after learning of the charges, but the workers claimed no memory of improper dumping, Coit Vice President of Operations Veny Pirochta said. Coit does a lot of work at UC Berkeley and has strict policies regarding wastewater disposal, according to Pirochta.
The contents of those holding tanks would have consisted of dirty water mixed with a mild soap used to clean carpets, he said. "Really, all it is is dirty carpet water," Pirochta said. "There is nothing toxic in there."
Strawberry Creek is used as an outdoor classroom to teach biology to science students.
"We spent a lot of effort and money restocking that creek," said university spokesman Robert Sanders, "Dumping even soap in it is destroying a resource we spent a lot of time restoring."
Discharging chemicals into storm drains is a blanket "a no-no" because of the potential to disrupt biological processes, according to Don Birrer of Bay Area Clean Water Agencies.
"If it goes into the storm drain, then it goes raw into the receiving water," Birrer said. "Whatever creatures that are out there, you are banging them with this stuff."
Coit never confirmed whether anything improper took place, but decided to retrain workers and reinforce policies, Pirochta said.
"We decided to settle it, but also learn from it," Pirochta said of the suit. "As a result, we are taking those in our company to an even better standard."


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