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Sandberg

David Irey vs. Dorothy Sandberg

Prior to becoming involved in the Robert Womack case, San Joaquin Deputy District Attorney David Irey was involved in initiating the prosecution of Dorothy Sandberg, a 65+ year-old divorced woman who had been given a piece of property in Linden, CA that was currently a medical office building, with two underground fuel tanks which had not been used since the 1950s or 1960s, when the property was a service station.

The county spent over seven years (starting in 1991) trying to force her to remove the tanks—even though they had not been installed nor ever been used by her. Fighting the case cost Ms. Sandberg about $40,000, some of which was recovered in a settlement with Chevron (the last tenant of the property when it was a service station), although she was still out several thousand dollars in the end.

Her legal bills alone came to about $50,000 and her lawyer ate some $35,000 of that—almost going bankrupt defending Ms. Sandberg.

Ms. Sandberg was in failing health during most of the time the county was after her, and she finally passed away in July of 1999 at the age of 71, barely a month after the final part of the case (the closing of an escrow fund) had been completed.

And why did San Joaquin county even file a complaint in the first place? Their own policy (dated February 3, 1986) states that tanks abandoned prior to July 1, 1984 may be legally abandoned with only simple documentation of when the
tanks were abandoned and a plot plan showing where they were located.

Among the many unfair acts which the County and David Irey committed:

  • Demanding that Ms. Sandberg to pay user fees (including back fees) for the tanks even though they were not in use and had not been in decades.
  • Required Ms. Sandberg to pay about $8,000 to have the soil around the tanks tested for contamination. As in the Womack case, no contamination was found at all.
  • The case was finally settled by forcing Ms. Sandberg to spend $15,000 to remove the two tanks–even though the best scientists in California have shown that underground fuel tanks pose no problem (and because of their last used date, neither tank had any MTBE in them, so the problem was indeed zero).

A Letter from Dorothy’s Ex-Husband

Shortly after I mentioned Dorothy’s case on Wattenburg’s show and posted the information here, I received this letter, which sheds some more insight into the case:

Dear Sir:

I am familiar with the Gas tank problems of Dorothy Sandberg. I am her
ex-husband and was the first person contacted by the Gestapo from the
D.A.'s office. They showed up in my office during office hours, without
the courtesy of asking for a convenient time for an interview. The
person who showed up was an insolent arrogant wise-ass. He gave the
impression that I was in for a quick trip to San Quentin for the heinous
crime I was a party to. I had no idea what he was talking about. I am
not sure I knew the building had been a gas station in the past. At any
rate he nosed around and found the tanks we had hidden away in our
parking lot. Shortly after I received a notice from the D.A.'s office
that I was a defendant in a lawsuit instigated by the Deputy District
Attorney Irey. A protest in the right place resulted in the Judge
dismissing the complaint with prejudice which I understood to mean that I
could not be brought back into the case under any circumstance.
Unfortunately my ex-wife was still on the hook.

My understanding of her case is that guidelines from the State Board of
Water Quality specified that if the tanks in question had been abandoned
before a certain date {1985 I believe} it was only necessary to
determine if there was a public water supply inside of a specific
radius. If not, it was only necessary to register the tanks and enter
their location on a map and "observe" in the ensuing years. The D.A.'s
office completely disregarded their own guidelines. They continued to
harass and threaten Dorothy.

I got the impression that the harassment and vigorous pursuit of the
case was political and was designed to benefit a third party--not to
protect the environment. I would be interested to know who made the
original complaint.

It is my opinion based on the manner in which the case was pursued that
there are people in the D.A.'s office that are pursuing their own agenda
and are less interested in the fair application of the law.

Very Truly,

Harry W. Sandberg M.D.