EDCO WASTE & RECYCLING Edward Burr, CEO EDCO's Release of Toxic Chemicals on my property has killed my mother, my horses and probably will kill me. Lemon Grove, California

On Nov. 17, 2006 EDCO accidentally released 35 gallons of toxic hydraulic fluid onto my property when the hydraulic fluid coupling on it's garbage truck ruptured.  The fluid arced up into the air, was aerosolized, and a 9 MPH wind blew it all over our mature landscaping, our home, and the rest of our 2.5 Acres. 

My mother was outside and inhaled the aerosolized chemicals.  She immediately could not breath.  Prior to this toxic release she suffered from emphysema which, at the time, was controlled with an occasional puff of an inhaler.

I inhaled it, got it on my face, and on my legs when I stepped into puddles of it and it splashed on my skin. Troika, my mother's service dog walked in puddles of it too.

EDCO refused to clean up this chemical contamination and restore our property to what it had been before this toxic release.  When we insisted that they clean it up we were told to "Have our Homeowners Insurance clean it up for us."  I don't believe that any Homeowners Insurance covers Toxic Spills, certainly ours didn't.

We were advised by The Water Quality Control Board that we were being exposed to neurotoxins, and petroleum hydrocarbons. We were advised by a retired toxicologist that hydraulic fluid should be put on the Toxic Substances Control List and soon. Not only did it contain petroleum hydrocarbons but heavy metals as well. Further he told us that there was not one petroleum hydrocarbon in existence that was not carcinogenic.

The Water Quality Control Board provided EDCO with the same information that they had given us and told them to clean up the contamination down to below 20mg/kg of soil, and to test the well water for possible contamination. EDCO NEVER did any of the requested cleanup or testing.  At that time the contamination measured 70,000mg/kg of soil.

At the time of the release EDCO first tried to blame us for what happened.  We did not accept that.  They then lied blatantly to us and advised us that these chemicals couldn't possibly hurt us at all.

I called our veterinarian to make sure that the animals wouldn't be harmed.  She immediately told me to keep our dogs away from the chemicals and the fumes because they were not only toxic but would kill our dogs.  I immediately got Troika into the bathtub and bathed her to get the chemicals off of her.

I kept checking on my mother.  I had but her on the bed and given her a strong dose of albuterol from a nebulizer we had purchased during the 2003 fire when we had smoke damage and she had breathing problems.  She was still gasping, but did not want me to call an ambulance.  She had been a nurse all my life and I trusted her judgment.

I called and tried to reach my mother's pulmonary doctor.  She was away on vacation and I asked for whoever was covering for her to please call me right away.  That we had a medical emergency.  Then I called HAZMAT, it was approximately 1 1/2 hours after the release had occurred. 

HAZMAT advised me to treat the release like it was gasoline.  I had no idea what that meant and told the man so.  When I asked him did that mean we should vacate the premises.  He would only repeat "Treat it like gasoline.", and then hung up.

Finally 4 hours after the toxic release the EDCO Supervisor, Lupe Ruiz, showed up.  He to tried to make this somehow our fault.  I did not accept that and he finally gave up trying to blame an overweight dumpster as the problem.  Especially since the truck driver, Jesus, had never even gotten his blades into the sides of the dumpster to lift it.

I asked him how they were going to clean this mess up?  He told me he had a cleanup crew on the way.  Six 55-65' tall cottonwood trees were saturated with the chemicals from 15' off the ground all the way down to the watering basin, which was now full of hydraulic fluid.  All six trees were the same and  34' wide brick patio was saturated where the fluid had arced all the way across and left the bottom of a 50 gallon waterer holding 2 inches of hydraulic fluid.

Soil that was a wonderful tan colored sandy loam now looked like graphite. The fruit trees were soaked from top to bottom, the vegetables Mom had planted were saturated, the other landscaping near the house was covered in it.  The back of the house and the roof were clearly covered with it, and our new stamped concrete patio immediately behind the house was so covered I almost slipped and fell several times.

Finally when the hydraulic fluid had finished soaking into the ground the cleanup crew arrived.  Four men who looked to be of Hispanic origin wearing street clothes.  There were no protective suits, no masks, no gloves, no booties to cover their shoes.  Now I was worried.  This did not look like a cleanup crew should.  These looked like janitors.

By now my throat was raw from being out in the contaminated air.  You could see particles of the fluid still floating in the air.  The cleanup crew pulled some shovels and rakes out of their pickup truck and went to work.  They began to rake the gray soil back and forth mixing it with any soil that might be clean underneath until the two were inseparable.

I rushed up to one of the "cleaners" and told him to stop.  How were they going to remove the contaminated soil by mixing it up with the clean.  The man looked at me as if he couldn't understand what I was saying. Lupe Ruiz came over and spoke to him in Spanish and the man went back to raking.  Then Lupe asked me what was the problem?  I told him that I wanted all of the contaminated soil removed.  I wanted all of  this hydraulic fluid off of our property.  We grew our own fruits and vegetables organically and were about to apply for organic certification.  They had to get this stuff off of our property or we wouldn't get our certification.

He told me that they would get it cleaned up not to worry.  I told him I was very worried about our tree.  Not just the fruit trees but the Cottonwoods that had been
mature when we moved there in 1989.  How were they going to get the hydraulic fluid off the trunk and from around the roots.  He assured me that they could powerwash it off the trunks and just dig the soil out from around the roots.

I went back into the house to check on Mom.  Troika was in the bedroom keeping her company, and ready to come and get me if I was needed.  Mom was slightly improved, but I gave her an additional albuterol sulfate treatment, and then went to call the San Diego Master Gardner.

The news wasn't good.  She advised me that we would NOT receive our organic certification for at least three years after this toxic release had been cleaned up, and she also told me NOT to eat any of the produce.  Fruit or vegetable.

Lupe Ruiz again told me not to worry about my mother, my dogs, my horses.  This stuff couldn't possibly hurt us it was just mineral oil.  I told him our vet did not agree with him.  He told me our vet didn't know what she was talking about.

Still hadn't heard from the doctor so I called again. He was still doing rounds but would get the message when he finished.  Great.

I warned Lupe Ruiz that they really needed to get all of this off the property.  That we were in a very high groundwater area.  We had hit water at 20 feet when we put in our well, and another neighbor had hit water at 5 feet.  The entire valley is on the same aquifer and if this stuff got into our well it would contaminate the entire valley's water supply.

Valley Center is an agricultural area.  Orange Groves, Avocado Groves, and various other farming endeavors.  We were not the only property farming organically.  We had thousands of composting worms.  Using the manure from our horses we made worm castings, which we used to fertilize our fruits and vegetables.  2005 was our first year to try planting rare organic garlics.  They were a big hit with friends, family and several chefs.  We had plans once we had our organic certification to turn one acre of our property over to farming rare garlics.

EDCO cleaned like that until 4PM and went home for the day.  They came back the next day, Saturday, and cleaned a little more.  They tried taking the dirt out from around one of the trees.  They found out that they couldn't do it that way.

Then they left and refused to come back.  EDCO told us to have our Homeowners Insurance clean it up for us.

The bottom line is that we tried to refinance our home in order to clean the property up only to find out that no one would give us a lone with the contamination on the property.  We couldn't sell it because no realtor would list it.  Mom could not breath more and more.  She developed other problems, incontinence, diarrhea, muscle weakness, ataxia, partial paralysis, headaches, brain fog, dementia. She began to need a walker to get around, then she had to use a wheelchair until finally she became so weak she was bedbound.

Just before she had to go into a wheelchair her pulmonary doctor ordered us off of the property for two weeks to see if that would help Mom.  What prompted that?  Chevron refused to give the doctor the chemical composition of the hydraulic fluid we had been exposed to. The only information they would give us was that this stuff does NOT dissipate.  It has to be removed.

So we moved into a hotel for two weeks.  At the end of which we had to go back home because there simply was no money left, but before we went home Mom's doctor had her do a five minute walking test.  Mom went from being able to walk from the bed to the closet at home, approximately 4 feet, before she had to sit down because she was out of breath to being able to walk for five minutes and then she only stopped because her legs were tired.

My improvement, my face cleared up.  Within two days of being exposed to these chemicals I developed a chronic dermatitis.  A terrible rash all over my face.  Open sores in my armpits, and I don't use deodorant. I was incontinent, and had short term memory problems.

Two weeks away from those chemicals made an incredible difference for both Mom and me.

Broke we were forced to move back into the house.  If I opened a window to let air in I would have to call an ambulance to take Mom to the hospital.  She could NOT be left alone.  I think she had to go to the hospital in the ambulance perhaps 20 times before she died.  Then there were the times I took her in the car.

When she went to the hospital so did I.  I stayed with her day and night.  Even the short trips I had to make home to toilet the dogs and feed the horses exposed her to incompetence.  An example, I came back from taking care of the animals only to find a nurse about to give Mom a shot of insulin.  I told her NO she was not, she insisted that she had to because Mom was diabetic.   We argued for five minutes while I patiently explained that my mother had never been diabetic a day in her life.  The nurse read the chart and then decided that it was just the strong dose of salmeterol that had caused it.  They had given her 160mg in the emergency room and were giving her the same in hospital 6 times a day.  She'd been overdosed.

I am disabled but we needed money and I was more than willing to try going back to work.  However, I couldn't try to return to work because Mom couldn't be left alone.  Not even for ten minutes. I couldn't afford a nurse to sit with her so I could try working, and we couldn't refinance the property in order to bring in enough money either to clean it up with or move our household to a rental property.

Worse yet EDCO spent all their time lying to us.  First it was that they would continue the cleanup.  Then they weren't. 

Then they provided us with an MSDS sheet (Manufacturers Safety Data Sheet).  The bible on what to do if you have a release.  Health issues associated with exposure, etc.  When I pointed out to them that this sheet was dated 1989, and surely they had made a mistake.  I was told by Garth Nogalez, the Director of Maintenance who handed me this MSDS sheet, that it was the current sheet.  The government only made Chevron issue a new MSDS if they changed the formulation and Chevron hadn't changed it so this sheet had remained current.

This 1989 MSDS sheet practically said that you could eat it, drink it, bath in it, and inhale it and this hydraulic fluid shouldn't harm you. As it turns out that was NOT the current MSDS sheet.  The most recent change to the formulation was in 2005.  There probably were other changes between 1989 and 2005 as well. 

The most current sheet, dated 2005, clearly stated that all the chemical components of this hydraulic fluid were on the Toxic Substances Control List.  It also clearly stated that if breathing problems occurred the patient should be removed to clean air and seen by a doctor, further chronic health issues might occur or existing health issues might be exacerbated by direct exposure to the fluid.  Quite different from the information EDCO had intentionally given us. Finally the current 2005 MSDS sheet advised the receiver to destroy any other/older MSDS sheets as no longer accurate and therefore unreliable.  By law every time EDCO received a shipment of Hydraulic Fluid they also received the most current MSDS sheet. It was not by accident that they gave us a very outdated MSDS sheet.

Then, having been advised that the information was crucial to my mother's healthcare and treatment, EDCO promised to provide us with a chemical analysis of what we were exposed to in exchange for being allowed to enter and test on our property.  We allowed them access.  Then they refused to share any information whatsoever.  When they did they did NOT provide us with the chemical analysis.

EDCO advised our attorney that they had never asked the lab to do any such analysis.  They may not have, but then why not share the information that they had obtained from the lab immediately.  Why hold it for the better part of a year unless there was incriminating information of some sort there.  They held the information just long enough for the lab to have purged it's records.

If EDCO had really wanted to help the doctors who were trying to save my mother all they had to do was give them the chemical analysis of the hydraulic fluid we had been exposed to.  That would have enabled Mom's doctors to know what she had been exposed to, and what they were treating her for exactly. EDCO didn't have to come to our property again to do that if they had truly forgotten to ask for that chemical analysis that they had promised. There were 55 gallon drums of that same hydraulic fluid sitting in EDCO's maintenance yard.  If they had truly had any concern about my mothers health all they had to do was have some of that analyzed, and give the findings to my mother's doctors.

In truth EDCO knew it should have removed us and all of our animals from the contaminated premises until they had cleaned it up properly.

We have been suing EDCO over the contamination of our property since Feb., 2007.  We are still suing.  EDCO portrays itself as an environmentally sensitive waste removal and recycling business.  If that were truly the case we would not still be suing them 34 months after this toxic release happened and was NEVER cleaned up.

I remain convinced that the following health issues and damage to our property have been caused directly by our exposure to this Toxic Release:

(6) 57'-65' tall Cottonwood trees which were mature when we moved onto this property in 1989 are now dead.

(1)  20' Leland Cypress has died.
       
(3) Fig trees have died.

(2) Peach trees died back to the root stock making them unsuitable as fruit trees.

(2) 15' Purple Jacarandas died back to the root stock, and are now non-flowering shrubs.  Useless as landscaping.

(all) The vegetables died, and we have not planted any more

(1000's) of composting worms are dead.  They live in the top 6-8" of soil.  None have been seen since the Toxic Release.

(1)  Irish bred Throughbred Stallion, previously undiagnosed with cancer, developed cancer after exposure to the toxic release and had to be put down in Aug.,2008.

(1) Holsteiner Broodmare, previously undiagnosed with cancer, has developed cancer.  She has not been bred since the Toxic Release and is the last of her bloodline in the U.S. possibly the world.  We could not risk what the affects of these chemicals might be on her foals.

(1) Appaloosa pleasure mare has lost approximately 300 pounds since her exposure to the toxic release.  Our vet hopes that it's her teeth not cancer.  The equine dentist says it's not her teeth.  She has yet to be actually diagnosed with cancer.

(1) Holsteiner filly, who was a yearling when the toxic release occurred, has developed a previously undiagnosed chronic dermatitis since the toxic release.  It's not an allergy to flies since it never goes away.  Even when it's not fly season.

(1) Dog has developed lumps which she did not have prior to the Toxic Release.  Troika is the only dog that actually walked in the hydraulic fluid.  We took all of the dogs to the dog park to toilet for seven months after the toxic release when we had to allow them back out where the release had happened, because I just became too exhausted taking care of Mom 24 hours a day and driving dogs back and forth twice a day to the dog park.  It took 3.5-4 hours twice a day just to walk the four dogs.

(4) In the last six months all four of the dogs have been throwing up.  I haven't changed their food or water.  there is no apparent reason that I can discern other than the presence of the chemicals on the property, and that they are exposed to them everytime they go out the back door.

(1)  I currently have various health issues I feel are directly attributable to the chemicals being on my skin for 24 hours.  I had been assured by EDCO that they couldn't harm me and I had my mother, horses, and dogs to take care of.  I just didn't have time to jump in the tub and bath.  I have chronic dermatitis on my face.  I continue to have places on my body that the chemicals touched that have been itching now for more than 34 months.  I am incontinent, which I wasn't before being exposed to these chemicals, and I have short term memory issues that I did not have prior to being exposed to these  chemicals.

With the horses developing cancers, with Troika developing lymphomas I decided that I should be tested.  I'm seeing my doctor next week and he will have the lab run an AMAS test on me to see if I too have developed cancer as an offshoot of my exposure to these chemicals too.  I've never been diagnosed with cancer, but.... well.

(1) Most of all my mother has died from the health issues her exposure to these chemicals caused.  She died here at home.  A place she had loved and came to hate.  A place that she had landscaped with her own hands.  She hated seeing her trees and plants die from their exposure to the chemicals.  When she died her health issues read like a list of problems you can have with exposure to neurotoxins.  The EPA has a 320 page report about hydraulic fluid with neurotoxins, and their effect on the human body.  I found out about that two weeks after Mom died.

My mother's doctors just didn't know what they were fighting, what they were treating her for.  None of them knew anything about the effects of toxic chemicals on the human body. 

The last member of my family died in my arms on March 22, 2009.  She had been a Registered Nurse, a Public Health Nurse, a Visiting Nurse, a champion for civil and human rights, she had written a grant (and gotten the program funded by Kaiser for $440,000.00 it's first year) for a children's project named "Children Having Children", all my life anytime a family member went to the hospital Mom was there watching over them, she sat by my sister's bedside when she died of cancer, she gave CPR to my father as he lay dying in their bed, she took care of me and the animals and the household after my second surgery in Oct., 2006.  While she lay dying in her hospital bed in our family room she and I worked on the concept and how we would implement a new children's project  She was a great woman, a great mother, and a great humanitarian.  She should not have had to die like this.  I held her in my arms while she went home not just because I loved her, but because she was so weak she could not hold her head up any longer, and because she loved me she wanted to be able to look at me one last time.

Why didn't I get help from a government agency?

Well, I called HAZMAT and they did absolutely nothing. They didn't even note that I had called that day.  EDCO, who is obligated by law to do so, never called HAZMAT to report the release.

I called the EPA and they did absolutely nothing except to finally tell me that there are environmental clinics that the EPA can refer me to (at no cost to me of course), and that these clinics are staffed by doctors who are conversant with toxic chemicals and how to treat health issues associated with exposure to toxic chemicals. Of course had they given me this information the first three times I called perhaps Mom would still be alive.  I wasn't given this information until a month after my mother had died.

I finally learned that there was a California Dept. of Toxic Substances Control from the California office of the EPA.  It is the Dept. of Toxic Substances Control's job to inspect and determine if a home, property, or business is habitable after a toxic release.

If the finding is that the property is not suitable for human or animal habitation until cleaned up, and the homeowners cannot afford to rehome their household then the Dept. will do so at no cost to the homeowners until their property is again habitable.

I called the California Dept. of Toxic Substances Control, and so far Mary Misemer has yet to even return my calls or emails.  Guess they are not interested in helping either.

The Remediation of my property has been estimated at $176,000.00.  Then there will have to be testing to see if it has actually been cleaned up, and if a Certificate of Clean can be issued.  If not than the remediation will cost more until we have obtained a Certificate of Clean.

The actual Restoration of my property is in excess of $675,000.00.  There may be an additional fee for moving the leach field, which probably will be compromised during the remediation process, and replumbing the house.  It is entirely possible that a new leach field cannot be laid on the property at all and so it may no longer be habitable.

However, the roof must be replaced, the heatpump must be replaced, the doors and windows must be replaced, the rear stamped concrete patio must be replaced,  the rear of the house must be sandblasted to clean the chemicals off, the whole house must be painted, the irrigation must be replaced, the electrical lines and water lines must be run back down to the barn, grass must be planted, all the dead and damaged trees both landscaping and fruit must be replaced, the brick patio relaid and the electrical outlets and lighting and water spigots replaced, the bull pen must be replaced, the jumps for the horses must be replaced,the garlic bed must be replaced, and all of our personal possessions that were contaminated by the toxic release and EDCO removed from our property while promising to reimburse us at replacement cost
(and of course only reimbursing us for 1/2 the cost.) must now be replaced. 

We and our possessions must be moved to a new residence to live while the property is remediated and restored.  The horses will have to be moved to a boarding facility with a trainer and housed there during the remediation and restoration as well.  There is more but I think that you get the idea. Just moving the horses and boarding them for a month costs over $20,000.00.  There's a reason for keeping 14 horses at home.  It's much cheaper.

There is a great deal more information.  I have copies of the letters we wrote to EDCO asking and begging for their help.  EDCO never answered any of the letters.  EDCO refused to put us in touch with it's Insurance Company.  EDCO finally had an Insurance Adjuster get in touch with us to negotiate a lesser payment to us for our personal possessions.  We never agreed to any such lowering of the replacement cost, and that apparently was all she had been hired to do. We never heard from her again.

EDCO, apparently, believed that we would just take all of this bad treatment and go away,  that we would not insist that they do the right thing.  EDCO is wrong I will NOT go away.  I will NEVER give up.  There is an old African saying.  When you have angered an African woman then you will find that you have struck a rock.

EDCO has found it's rock.