Chemical Watchdog Firm Accused of Hazardous-Materials Violations

The Los Angeles city attorney’s office has accused a North Hollywood firm, which tests to determine if companies are violating hazardous-materials laws, with violating hazardous-materials laws.

Twelve misdemeanor criminal charges were filed Thursday against Ensotech Inc. and its owner, Inderjit Sabherwal, the city attorney’s office reported in a release. The charges include operating a laboratory without a permit and storing volatile chemicals in a residential building.

The charges resulted from a raid by members of the environmental protection strike force--including fire, building, health and industrial safety inspectors--last March. They found chemicals stored illegally on the ground floor of a stucco building on Vanowen Street that had four apartments on the second floor, the city attorney’s office reported.

The substances included ethyl ether and pitric acid, chemicals more flammable than gasoline, which were kept in a common kitchen refrigerator, not in the explosion-resistant refrigerator required by law, according to the charges.

Drums of chemicals were stored under a stairway used by residents to reach their apartments, the release said.

Disputes Allegations

Upon learning of the charges, Sabherwal’s wife, Janak, said she and her husband thought their legal troubles had ended since they moved the lab to another North Hollywood building shortly after the city raid. She disputed the city’s contention that Ensotech had been storing chemicals dangerously.

Some of the chemicals alleged to have been stored illegally “were not there,” Janak Sabherwal said, “and some of the things were exaggerated. The quantity was so small that it was not dangerous to anybody.”

The company is in the business of “sampling and testing waste streams of industrial manufacturers in order to ensure that they are complying with laws regulating the discharge of hazardous materials into public sewer systems,” the city attorney’s office reported.

City fire officials closed the Vanowen Street lab after the March raid, and the company could not resume business at its new site until June, Janak Sabherwal said.

The charges filed Thursday carry a maximum penalty of six years in prison and a $12,000 fine.

Arraignment for Inderjit Sabherwal was scheduled for Feb. 19.