|
By Karin Grennan
Ventura County Star
February 8, 2006
An environmental group is threatening
to sue two businesses for allegedly dumping waste into the
Arroyo Las Posas in Camarillo.
Ventura Coastkeeper, a program of the Wishtoyo Foundation, on
Wednesday sent a notice of intent to file suit to Joseph and
Lisa Sutter; Sutter Farms; Ching-San and Chin-Tzu Tsai;
Ching-Chou Lin; Chen-Chen Yi and Santa Barbara Reverse
Exchange Services, according to Mati Waiya, Wishtoyo's
executive director. The notice is the first step toward filing
a federal lawsuit claiming violations of the Clean Water Act,
according to attorney Daniel Cooper with Lawyers for Clean
Water.
The notice provides 60 days for the parties to correct the
problems and for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers,
Environmental Protection Agency and the state of California to
decide whether they want to take over or join in the lawsuit,
Cooper said.
Ching-San Tsai is the only defendant with a listed phone
number; no one answered calls to the number on Wednesday.
Cooper said Wishtoyo members saw marble, roofing tiles and
other construction trash piled in the riverbed during several
visits to the Santa Barbara Reverse Exchange Services property
along the Arroyo Las Posas.
Tree trunks and stumps, chunks of metal and other debris were
dumped into the riverbed and covered with dirt on the Sutter
property, Cooper alleged.
"You might as well just create a landfill on the banks of
the creek," said Waiya, of Newbury Park.
Waiya said he and other Wishtoyo members noticed the debris
along Arroyo Las Posas, which flows into Calleguas Creek,
while they were harvesting tule and willows from around the
creek for the Chumash Cultural Village Site they are building
in Malibu.
Wishtoyo is an American Indian organization that
invokes traditional Chumash cultural values to foster
environmental awareness.
Copyright 2007, Ventura County Star. All Rights Reserved.
|
