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| FAX TO: | TODD RIEBE, DISTRICT ATTORNEY, AMADOR COUNTY |
| FROM: | BILL WATTENBURG, citizen of California |
February 17, 1999
Todd Riebe
District Attorney
Amador County
Jackson, CA 95642
| Subject: | Possible Violations of California Health and Safety Codes and Federal EPA regulations by Amador County officials |
District Attorney Riebe:
I have several matters to present and report to you as described in paragraphs A, B and C below:
A. Freedom of Information Request for Public Documents
On February 8, 1999, I reported to you by fax transmission (receipt of which you have acknowledged to your local newspaper, The Ledger Dispatch) apparent violations of state and federal environmental laws at the county airport which purportedly continued to use underground fuel storage tanks without permit or approval until February 1, 1999. I hereby request under the State of California freedom of information act copies of all documents in the possession of Amador county which documents describe the delivery, dispensing, sale, daily inventory on hand, and/or removal of fuel (gasoline or diesel of any type) to or from underground storage tanks at the Westover Amador county airport and the Amador county corporation yard from the period Jan 1, 1998 to the present time, February 17, 1999, a period of approximately thirteen months. In particular, I am requesting copies of the manifests for the recent removal of fuel in the underground tanks at the Westover airport and the county corporation yard which fuel removal was done after county officials ordered that the tanks be closed and locked on or about Feb 1, 1999.
Yesterday morning, I asked an Amador county citizen, Rick Paul, to obtain for me the above records in person from the appropriate county offices. I understand that county officials whom he approached to obtain these documents had been told to call your office so that he could be arrested on an outstanding warrant of some sort if he showed up at their offices. It would appear that you had some knowledge as to how and why this warrant was issued on such a timely basis. His immediate arrest, of course, delays the time that these records will be made public. My initial interest in these records was only to complete my file on how Amador county officials managed to rationalize the fact that county fuel tanks where not closed as required by law on Jan 1, 1999. I now have to believe that these records must be far more revealing than I had imagined.
I have been told that there is case law which says that freedom of information requests properly submitted to a county official such as you in writing must be directed by you to the appropriate county offices which can honor the request when locating the proper agency would be an unnecessary burden on the individual making the request or result in unreasonable delays in receiving the documents. It might appear to some that you have created a rather dangerous environment for hapless citizens who request sensitive documents by personally approaching Amador county officials. A prudent person might come prepared to spend the night in the county jail.
I specifically request that you notify me within five working days by return mail at KGO Radio, American Broadcasting Company, 900 Front Street, San Francisco, CA 94111, as to whether you, as an Amador County official with access to the documents requested, intend to fulfill the above freedom of information request.
You realize, of course, that continued use of old tanks that could be leaking could have already caused environmental damage a thousand times greater than any possible damage done by Mr. Womack's removal of an empty tank that was already upgraded to EPA standards and was tested and certified to be void of any toxic material. If these county violations actually took place as described in recent official letters from county officials, Amador county officials may have pulled off one of the neatest "snipe hunt" tricks on federal EPA officials I ever heard about. If true, we will have to pity the poor local federal EPA fools who were being led into "weapons drawn" raids on docile Amador citizens while, maybe, their attack helicopters were being fueled at the Amador county airport.
If the county tanks were being used illegally, it means that Amador county officials may have set a different example for all good citizens to follow. It would seem that they are saying that the best way to escape all prosecution is to ignore the EPA regulations completely, continue to use illegal tanks, and not even attempt to obtain proper permits (which foolish action could expose one to being noticed by some other county bureaucrat and subjected to the special kind of Amador county justice that appears to be dispensed only to private citizens, so far).
B. Potential Toxic Material Buried at Amador County Property.
As a responsible member of the press I am hereby notifying you and federal EPA officials that individuals who prefer to remain anonymous have told me that they believe that there are several seriously contaminated areas on Amador county property that have not been reported or cleaned up by county officials under proper state and federal permits. The specific information offered to me as a member of the press is the following:
Because of your county's recent and notorious very aggressive pursuit of suspected environmental criminals, I was certain you and your very capable investigators would want to know of these potential violations before federal officials arrive to ask any embarrassing questions. The very expensive construction equipment that you recently used in the Womack case could easily unearth these county areas in a few minutes. The informant who provided the above information appeared to me to be slightly more credible than a well known informant quoted by your investigators to obtain recent search warrants and "digging permits" from the Amador county superior court. (I gave this anonymous individual on the telephone a spelling check on three letter words which she passed with flying colors. She didn't even gag when I asked her if she had heard of the DEA.)
C. Possible Illegal Dump Cover-up.
Oh, I almost forgot. Another concerned citizen reported to me that somebody's dump is hanging out in Amador county. She claims that within the last two years she watched a county official from the Amador County Environmental Health Dept. direct a contractor to cover over large amounts of potentially toxic material such as old car parts, lead-acid batteries, demolition material, etc. over a 300 acre dump area somewhere in Amador County. She claims that this material was pushed into a ravine near a flowing creek and covered up with a thin layer of dirt before her disbelieving eyes. Certainly, your brilliant investigators can identify this dump area if it exists because there could only be a few such areas in your county. The informant suggests that this should not be difficult because natural runoff has washed away the thin dirt and exposed the raw dump material in many places that are visible to nearby homeowners.
Your investigators have recently obtained search warrants and pursued at great expense the possibility that a private individual might have buried the remnants of a service station facility on the Luke Womack property. Clearly, this means that Amador county officials have legally defined all such material to be toxic (either that or they were just playing "April Fool" in affidavits to your superior court judges). Just imagine what a rich discovery it will be if hundreds of tons of similar toxic material are found in the mysterious Amador county dump reported by this public-spirited citizen? If this report is true, the follow up questions will be: Did Amador county officials ever obtain the proper state and federal permits to cover up this dump - and appropriate state and federal inspections while it was being done? Which county environmental health official(s) directed and approved the dump cover-up operation if it occurred?
If true, any one or more of the purported violations in paragraphs A,B, and C above are serious violations of Prop 65 and other state and federal environmental laws. This is your official notice under the proposition 65 statutes that you are hereby requested on this date to investigate and prosecute these purported violations if they have been committed by anyone.
I know that you will be most anxious to learn of any other possible violations of environmental laws in Amador county that your office can investigate. Your office and your investigators have set a standard for pursuing suspected environmental violations that surely must be the envy of all other counties in the state. Please rest assured that I will pass on to you and federal officials any other information I receive that is supported with enough specifics to be credible and to be considered probable cause for investigation.
Copy:
EPA, David Schmidt, San Francisco
Amador Ledger Dispatch
The Sacramento Bee
San Francisco Chronicle
Wall Street Journal
This is a copy of Bill's first letter to Todd Riebe:
| FAX TO: | TODD RIEBE, DISTRICT ATTORNEY, AMADOR COUNTY |
| FROM: | BILL WATTENBURG, citizen of California |
Todd Riebe
District Attorney
Amador County
Jackson, CA 95642
Subject: Possible Violations of California Health and Safety codes and Federal EPA regulations by Amador County officials and county airport managers, contractors, and suppliers.
District Attorney Riebe:
As a citizen of the State of California, I am hereby notifying you that I believe that Amador county officials have apparently violated, and been in violation of, the California laws and federal regulations concerning use and removal of underground fuel storage tanks (UST's). Specifically, it appears possible that county officials and contractors have been using and accepting fuel into UST's at the county airport since the deadline of Dec 22, 1998 which was the date that all such activity was to cease until UST's are brought into compliance and meet all regulations. I hereby request that your office immediately investigate these activities and file appropriate criminal charges against any and all persons who may have participated in the continued use of these UST's between 22 Dec 1998 and Feb 1, 1999. This investigation and action must include all officials who directed or conspired to continue any illegal activity, who knew any illegal activity was going on but took no official action to stop it, who delivered fuel to these UST's, or who may have conspired to bless and/or cover up illegal activity by issuing official permits or letters of direction after the fact which is clearly prohibited by the law and recent pronouncements from both the California EPA and federal EPA who refused to grant extensions to or waivers of any sort of the Dec 22, 1998, deadline. Most citizens and high officials of California now understand that you have employed a very capable and energetic staff of DA investigators and a special environmental prosecutor who have been training for many months at great taxpayer expense to handle just such matters of great environmental insult as the potential crimes that I hereby report to you. This one should be a piece of cake for them because they will not have to go more than a few doors from your office to serve their search warrants, and I would hope they would not have to draw their weapons for fear of encountering violent criminals on the county payroll. I trust that you are aware that you are obligated to prosecute public officials who break the law with the same vigor that you have prosecuted private citizens. You must equally apply the law to all individuals public or private. You must investigate alleged violations of the law by public officials backed up by readily available official documents, press reports, and witnesses with the same vigor and employing the same means as your office has been using to support criminal charges against private individuals throughout Amador county. Surely, you will agree that this must include a thorough investigation of the personal lives and personal business activities of all public officials suspected of being involved in violations of environmental laws in Amador County - with public disclosure of all information gathered. A grand jury is most appropriate for indicting public officials who have violated the law and their oaths to uphold the law. Your investigation must also consider conspiracy, aiding and abetting, or dereliction of duty charges against your own DA investigators and special prosecutor (or yourself) who may have known about and actually discussed these notorious violations with other officials and citizens while they were driving by the airport location of these purported crimes while chasing down and officially flogging private citizens for lesser acts. I believe you can find witnesses who will testify to such conversations. I believe you will find that the contractor hired to do work on the UST's at the airport after Dec 22, 1998, was not informed for some time that the airport manager employed by the county had no permit or legal right to do such work and that he was induced to violate the law by county officials and/or contractors. Such activity has been called conspiracy by your office.
I believe that failure to carry out your duties as a fair and impartial prosecutor will put the good citizens and taxpayers of Amador County at great risk of having to pay enormous damage judgments to private individuals that you have or are now prosecuting. Equal protection under the law and certain civil rights are guaranteed by both California and federal law.
This fax transmission letter is also a first official notice to you under the Proposition 65 statues that I believe there is notorious evidence, as described above, that Prop 65 statues have been violated with intent by officials of Amador County who can be easily identified by you and that you have 60 days to file appropriate charges against these individuals.
You will be notified in the future of any and all possible violations of the Prop 65 statutes and environmental laws by public officials in Amador County. However, I was certain that you would want to know about these documented violations as soon as possible so that you and your investigators could move quickly to stop these purported felonious acts possibly originating right beneath your feet in the Amador County courthouse (Hopefully, your office and status are at least slightly elevated above any county bureaucrats that you prove were involved in or directed these acts).
Copy:
Amador Ledger Dispatch
San Francisco Chronicle
Wall Street Journal
This page was last modified on Monday, 11-Oct-2004 19:06:21 PDT.
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