Try as they might, Tehama County just can’t spare taxpayers from the costly cleanup of a Corning recycling facility that was destroyed in a spectacular fire in July of 2018. The fire at Specialized Fibers burned for two days as firefighters used literally Millions of Gallons of water to extinguish it and risked their health dealing with unknown substances. The disaster closed South Avenue for more than a week. Five months later, with rainy season beginning, Tehama County Environmental Health raised alarms that the massive piles of hazardous materials that remained would be a threat to nearby waterways, but the companies, Bucky Lee and Omega Waste, were seemingly unconcerned about cleanup. When officials inspected the property after the 2018 fire, they found a lot of toxins not covered by the company’s use permit, including storage tanks with petroleum and solvents. Some materials remained unidentified and were still being tested when the site was declared a public nuisance. The owner was charged but then died and his wife worked out a deal with the county that included a $1.7 Million fine pending cleanup, but that still never happened. A company called Pelorus then acquired the land and agreed to spend an estimated $2.6 Million to finally clean it up, but the entire mess remains untouched, according to the Tehama County District Attorney’s Office, who say they’ve also discovered that Bucky Lee and Omega Waste are operating a second facility on Toomes Avenue in Corning under conditions very similar to the South Avenue facility. On Wednesday a judge granted a motion by the DA’s Office to appoint an independent receiver to manage cleanup of both sites.
– Steve Gibson