Industrial Emissions

Apparel company St. John Knits has agreed to pay $100,000 to settle a civil lawsuit alleging that the Irvine-based company violated state law by disposing hazardous waste into a sewer line. St. John Knits admitted no wrongdoing in connection with the allegations by Orange County Dist. Atty. Michael R. Capizzi. County investigators found during intermittent testing that on two occasions hazardous waste had been disposed of in sewer lines serving the company's plant. St.

Another group of Burbank residents has taken legal action against Lockheed Martin Corp., alleging that decades of toxic emissions and dumping at a manufacturing plant have caused cancer and other health problems as well as degraded property values.

Another group of Burbank residents has taken legal action against Lockheed Martin Corp., alleging that decades of toxic emissions and dumping at a manufacturing plant have caused cancer and other health problems and degraded property values.

When Reto Eberle opened Sitag International, a seating company modeled after a firm in his native Switzerland, he implemented strict environmental policies such as those in Europe. Although they require more effort and money, he learned that being environmentally friendly made his Irvine-based company more efficient and competitive. Eberle was interviewed by Karen Kaplan.

The former corporate owner of a kelp processing and food ingredients plant has agreed to pay a $1.8-million fine for allegedly violating air pollution standards, the largest such fine ever levied against a California company, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced Thursday. New Jersey-based Merck and Co., former owner of the NutraSweet Kelco Co. plant in San Diego, agreed to pay the fine to settle an allegation by the U.S.

Breaking its three-year impasse in enacting major rules to fight smog, the region's air quality board ordered about 32,000 Southern California businesses Friday to stop using high-polluting, petroleum-based cleaning solvents. The new mandate, effective in two years, is one of the single most efficient anti-smog measures that the South Coast Air Quality Management District anticipates adopting over the next two decades.

The owner of a Sun Valley electroplating company was ordered this week to stand trial on charges of dumping cyanide and other toxins into city sewers. Jack Meltzer, 53, owner of Quality Processing Co., faces 16 counts of illegal dumping, including 10 felonies, as well as fines of more than $1 million, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Anthony Patchett, a prosecutor in the county's Environmental Crimes unit.

The Orange County Hazardous Materials Strike Force seized records from a Santa Ana costume jewelry manufacturer Tuesday as part of an investigation of possible illegal dumping of toxic materials, health officials said. Bob Gannon, supervising deputy district attorney, would not give details of the search, saying that it was part of an ongoing investigation of the company, Time Casting.

The Southland's air-quality agency is overhauling a project touted as its most aggressive smog-fighting effort of the decade after the startling discovery that it could increase pollution for the next 10 years. The data is a major embarrassment to the South Coast Air Quality Management District, which has spent more than two years developing the proposal to expand RECLAIM, its groundbreaking pollution-trading program.

In a decision hailed as a boon to business, federal officials Friday cleared more than 1,400 property and business owners once suspected of leaking chemical pollutants into San Fernando Valley ground water supplies, erasing the threat of costly participation in a massive Superfund cleanup program.