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a <br /> 5rintble Version Page 1 of 2 <br /> Galt couple purchase site of Tracy tire fire <br /> By Janet Somers <br /> San Joaquin News Service <br /> The site of the infamous Tracy tire fire, a 50-acre property on South MacArthur Drive where 7 million tires went up in <br /> smoke during a two-year rubbery inferno, sold last month in a county tax auction for a fraction of its worth. <br /> Javier and Evangelina Jaime of Galt paid $61,000 in cash for the parcel—the amount of due taxes on the property. It <br /> was appraised last year at $900,000. <br /> A phone number for the Jaimes discovered at the San Joaquin County Assessor's Office was disconnected with no <br /> forwarding number, and the couple is unlisted in the phone book. Property records show the couple owns no other <br /> property. <br /> The real estate bore liens amounting to several million dollars for cleanup work done after the fire. But by law, when a <br /> property sells in a county auction for back taxes, any other liens on it by government agencies disappear. <br /> The state's Integrated Waste Management Board had a$4.3 million lien on the land, said the board's Todd Thalhamer, <br /> whose agency eventually spent $19 million to clean up the site. The agency will not get its money now. <br /> Silas Royster owned the property before the Jaimes. He ran a business charging people to dump tires there and had <br /> accumulated about 7 million of them before the fire. For years, he had fought with the San Joaquin County Planning <br /> Commission and the waste board about mountainous heaps of tires, which violated terms of his permit specifying they <br /> be grouped into 50-by-50 foot piles separated by fire lanes. <br /> The Stockton Record in 1984 quoted him as saying the county's concern with fire danger was unfounded because "even <br /> setting a match" to tires won't cause them to catch fire. <br /> But a fire began Aug. 7, 1998, —the day after he lost his final appeal with the waste board, according to Thalhamer. <br /> Royster told the Tracy Press the day after the fire that it started after a blade from his weed whacker hit a rock while he <br /> was cutting weeds, causing a spark. <br /> Royster had been under investigation by a federal grand jury,which was about to hand down indictments charging him <br /> with bankruptcy fraud. Prosecutors claimed he hid a large boat and $140,000 from creditors. The indictments were <br /> handed down Aug. 14, 1998, and four days later Royster died of lung and throat cancer. <br /> The fire was allowed to burn for two years in order to protect underground aquifers from chemicals that would have <br /> been used to douse it. By about 2000, the fire was out but a long and costly cleanup was just beginning. <br /> Lanny Clavecilla of the waste board said that about 387 tons of debris were removed. The last truckload was <br /> ceremoniously hauled away May 3 of this year. <br /> However, toxins from the burnt rubber had seeped into groundwater, and monitoring and remediation continued until <br /> the sale. <br /> Now the pollution is the Jaimes'problem. <br /> The waste board spent $700,000 during the past year to clean up polluted dirt on the property that was fouling the <br /> groundwater. Tests show groundwater pollution levels coming down to roughly 200 parts per billion from 50,000 parts <br /> per billion of oily contaminants. The legal maximum is 100 parts per billion. <br /> The buyers now must deal with the remaining contamination, which Thalhamer said amounts to about 110-foot wide <br /> http://www.lodinews.com/articles/2006/12/13/business/1_tire_061213.prt 12/15/2006 <br />