Local News in Brief : Contamination Cleanup
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Stephen Bortz, 41, a former officer of the Bortz Oil Co., has been sentenced to 30 days’ house arrest and ordered to cooperate in cleaning up contaminated land around the firm’s Chinatown-area storage tanks. Cost of the cleanup, to be borne by the corporation and its key officers, was estimated by public health officials at $500,000 to $1 million.
In addition to having to spend a month at his home, Bortz, who ran the company with his father, Leo Bortz, 75, was fined $20,000 and given three years’ felony probation.
Another $11,000 in costs incurred by the Los Angeles County Toxic Waste Strike Force, which investigated the contamination, also will be repaid by Bortz, his father and the corporation.
Bortz and his father no longer own the company where soil at the 1746 N. Spring St. site was contaminated with such hazardous wastes as acetone and lacquer thinner. The elder Bortz and the corporation are scheduled for sentencing Nov. 3 by Superior Court Judge Judith Chirlin.
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