SCWW-Green Compass: Third employee pleads guilty, others due in court

March 22, 2017
Santa Paula News

Another former employee of Santa Clara Waste Water-Green Compass has pleaded guilty to criminal charges related to the 2014 explosions and fire at the facility located west of Santa Paula, including illegally moving hazardous materials to a location in a residential/commercial area of the city.

According to court records, David Joseph Wirsing, 45, appeared before Judge Patricia Murphy on March 2 and entered his plea to felony conspiracy.

Wirsing is the third defendant indicted in the case who has pleaded guilty. Mark Avila and Brock “Gus” Baker pleaded guilty on Nov. 20, 2015, to four counts including failure to warn of serious concealed danger, repeated violation of labor safety standards and interference with enforcement.

Avila and Baker are scheduled to appear in court for sentencing June 23.

Wirsing, a former manager for the company, was indicted by a Grand Jury in August 2015 with eight other company officials — and the business entities — on criminal counts stemming from the November 18, 2014, explosions and fire at the wastewater treatment facility, located at 815 Mission Rock Road. 

Three Santa Paula Firefighters — the first on the scene of the approximately 3:45 a.m. call — were seriously injured by exposure to toxic chemicals, more than 1,000 gallons that exploded out the back of a vacuum truck. Several others at the scene were also seriously injured. Two SPPF Firefighters have since taken medical retirements. During the incident the material, which never has been positively identified, spontaneously combusted sending up flames and fumes and preventing testing by nervous labs. 

In all, about 50 people were taken to or arrived at area hospitals with symptoms of exposure that even affected caregivers; a one-mile radius was evacuated — later reduced to half-a-mile — and an organic farm’s crop was declared a $1 million loss. Those with businesses or homes in the immediate area were allowed to return, but cautioned about further potential danger, days later. For months, an emergency response RV “Tent City” comprised of county, state and federal officials and investigators, was set up in the north parking lot of Kmart.

Multiple charges that resulted from the initial incident included 71 counts of multiple felony and misdemeanor charges, including endangering the public, conspiracy to commit a crime, handling hazardous waste with a reckless disregard for human life, disposal of hazardous waste, committing violations causing injuries and other charges.

According to the charges, Wirsing and other Santa Clara Waste Water officials negotiated a lease for an off-site storage yard off the south end of Palm Avenue in Santa Paula in July 2014, where chemicals from the facility were illegally transported and stored.

One of the counts Wirsing pleaded guilty to March 2 was felony conspiracy to impede the enforcement of a Certified Unified Program Agency official, the Ventura County Environmental Health Agency which just weeks before the November 2014 explosions and fire had inspected the facility.

Wirsing also admitted to overt acts in the count, which includes charges related to the transfer of hazardous chemicals from Mission Rock Road to the Palm Avenue storage yard; he also admitted exchanging text messages with another SCWW employee about the actions. 

Wirsing could face a maximum sentence of a year in jail and formal probation when he appears in court August 28. 

The case for others’ meanwhile seems to drag on with demurrers and other legal motions punctuated with claims of prosecutorial misconduct by defense attorneys.  

Other defendants were scheduled to appear in court March 20 for arraignment including SCWW CEO William Mitzel, Assistant General Manager Marlene Faltemier, Board Chairman Douglas Edwards, Vice President of Operations Charles Mundy, Vice President of Oil and Gas Sales Dean Poe, and Kenneth Griffin Jr., a supervisor and the son of one of the defendants. 

Griffin, according to search warrants, allegedly had instructed truck driver Nick Arbuckle to clean up the facility and “suck up” chemicals out of large plastic totes into a vacuum truck in anticipation of a visit by representatives of the Department of Defense. 

Arbuckle told investigators that the order surprised him because he had no experience in what Griffith directed him to do. After double-checking with Griffin, Arbuckle started the work. Later, when sitting in the cab of the truck taking a meal break, the vehicle exploded.

Wirsing and Poe have another date in court outside the other defendants: The two, along with Poe’s family, last year filed a $27 million civil rights claim against the county alleging misconduct by the District Attorney’s and Sheriff’s offices. The claim also called for a federal investigation into alleged harassment and targeting of SCWW employees.

The two agencies denied the claims that they retaliated against the Santa Clara Waste Water defendants because firefighters had been injured during the incident. According to the original investigation and warrants, one of the defendants had remarked on the actions of firefighters to investigators while another made comments at a 2014 holiday party overhead by a member of the DA’s staff regarding the legitimacy of firefighters’ injuries.

A jury will consider the federal case October 24.





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