Case Closed on Capri Toxic Waste Facility : $338,000 Settlement With State Ends Long Battle Over East L.A. Site

California’s long-running case against the owners of an East Los Angeles hazardous waste facility ended Monday with a settlement under which the state will receive $338,000 in costs and fines without a trial.

Under the agreement, Refugio Carrasco; his wife, Genevieve, and their Capri Pumping Service and A&R; Vacuum Trucking Corp. must pay the state $288,000 in costs and $50,000 in civil fines. Another $25,000 in civil penalties is due the City of Los Angeles. In addition, the defendants are permanently enjoined from handling hazardous wastes without obtaining a special state permit.

The state has already recovered about $1.4 million for cleanup of the controversial site from companies that generated the waste, and after this, “the state will be made whole,” Deputy Atty. Gen. Susan Durbin said. She said California has paid $1.7 million to clean up the dump site.

Durbin said reaching a settlement was “a great advantage to the state,” instead of going to trial, which would take six to eight weeks and cost tens of thousands of dollars. In addition, she said, it gives the state what prosecutors would have sought at a trial: recovery of costs and protection of the public.

Trial of the more than five-year-old case had been scheduled to begin on Monday, before Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Bruce Geernaert, when lawyers announced that they had reached a settlement.

Attorneys told the court Monday that the dump site on Whittier Boulevard, which was ordered shut down in mid-1980, was declared free and clear of contamination by the state Department of Health Services in 1984. It has since been fenced off, planted with wildflowers and rezoned for parking, according to city officials.

Pending entry of a final judgment, the settlement dismisses two Los Angeles Superior Court cases against the Carrascos and removes them as individual defendants from a federal court case that the state is pursuing against toxic waste producers.

Geernaert approved the agreement, which includes provision for a writ of attachment against an award the Carrascos won in another lawsuit. In that case, a Los Angeles Superior Court jury last month returned a verdict awarding the Carrascos $1.8 million in damages against the Pan American National Bank of East Los Angeles.

The bank, according to that suit, allegedly reneged on a promised loan to build a trash recycling facility. According to Deputy Atty. Gen. Donald Robinson, who also appeared for the state at Monday’s hearing, there is a court order for the damage award to Carrasco but it has not been entered as a final judgment yet.

Under terms of Monday’s settlement, the Carrascos are permanently enjoined from engaging in the handling or storing of toxic waste materials at the East Los Angeles site or at any other without a permit from the state.

In early 1982, Carrasco was cited for contempt for continuing to store hazardous acids and soil at the former chemical disposal site. He was given a sentence of 30 days in jail and $3,000 fine, which was suspended for six months to give him a chance to clean up the site. Six months later, the contempt citation was dropped after Geernaert found that Carrasco has shown “good faith” and completed the job ahead of time.

“This was a successful end to the final chapter of the Capri saga,” City Atty. James K. Hahn said. “When this office first took action against Capri, the aims were to close down the facility, get an injunction keeping it closed and clean up the site. All those goals have been accomplished, and today, we finally exacted the city’s financial due.”

Carrasco’s attorney, Lawrence Graze, declined comment on the settlement after the hearing.

The Times learned last week that the FBI is investigating the state-financed, city-run cleanup of the dump, which generated a separate controversy.

According to individuals interviewed by the FBI, the investigation focuses on the possibility that political influence might have played a role in awarding the $1.3-million cleanup contract in 1983 to R. E. Wolfe Enterprises.

In a controversial decision, the city Public Works Board rejected the initial advice of city and state staff members in accepting the bid from Wolfe, a firm established by Rolla E. Wolfe, a Kansas City-based highway contractor, and W. Patrick Moriarty, a former fireworks manufacturer and a central figure in the government investigation.

Last March, Moriarty pleaded guilty to seven counts of mail fraud in connection with bribery of public officials and illegal contributions to politicians.