The Santa Barbara County District Attorney’s Office reached a settlement with a Lompoc mining company accused of polluting a nearby river, according to Deputy District Attorney Kevin Weichbrod.
In a lawsuit filed in Santa Barbara County Superior Court on Feb. 16, Imerys Minerals, which mines diatomaceous earth, is accused of polluting the San Miguelito Creek on two separate occasions in January 2014.
According to Weichbrod, two anonymous calls were placed—one on Jan. 3 or 4, and another on Jan. 7—to the California State Water Board, who investigated the alleged pollution along with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.
Weichbrod said an environmental task force from the FWS investigated the allegations, which included taking aerial photographs of the site, and submitted a report to the district attorney’s office.
Imerys, which is a Paris-based corporation, mines diatomaceous earth for several of its products, some of which are used in beer and wine filtration systems. Weichbrod said it’s not the diatomaceous earth that’s polluting the creek, but rather the silt from the mining process.
“Diatomaceous earth isn’t technically a hazardous material,” he said, “but what it is, is a bi-product of mining. Silt will fill in cracks and crevices in the creek and clog up waterways.”
Several calls made to Imerys by the Sun were not immediately returned.
The settlement—which was reached before the lawsuit was filed—came out to $350,000, split between the FWS, the Central Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board, and the district attorney’s office, Weichbrod said.
“It was one of those cases where we were able to work out a settlement before it went to litigation,” Weichbrod told the Sun.
Not including what it paid out for the settlement, Imerys still must pay for cost of restoring the creek. It was a stipulated judgment with the company agreeing to a five-year period of monitoring, Weichbrod said, adding that the FWS is required to approve the restoration plan.
This article appears in Mar 3-10, 2016.