SITE INFORMATION AND CORRESPONDENCE_2

Home Browse Search

RORY CAMPBELL,ESQ. 0 PARTNER '''+ BRIDGEii DIRECT DIAL 415 995 5029 REPLY TO SAN FRANCISCO m p E-MAIL rcompbellQhansonbridgett.com - ` ` ` u �oHos February 2, 2000 Ron Rowe Registered Environmental Specialist San Joaquin County Environmental Health Services 304 E. Weber Street, Third Floor Stockton, California 95202 Re: Del Monte Disco Site, 110 N. Filbert St., Stockton, CA("Property") Dear Mr. Rowe: As you know, for roughly a decade Del Monte Corporation ("Del Monte")has been named as a responsible party for the remediation of hydrocarbon contamination of the referenced Property under various orders issued by your office over the last decade. In 1994, Del Monte convinced the County to add a prior owner- Parmaceast- and its general partners - Fampar, Inc.("Fampar") and Warren Simmons ("Simmons"), as additional responsible parties. We represent these additional responsible parties (collectively referred to as "Prior Owners). This letter is submitted to formally request that the County reconsider and reverse its prior decision to name the Prior Owners as responsible parties. There is both new evidence showing that the basis for naming the Prior Owners was unsound and that Del Monte's "evidence" was inaccurate and misleading. The County's determination that the Prior Owners should be added as responsible parties was based solely on the evidence presented and argued by Del Monte to serve its own purposes. In submitting this request, we note that(i)the Prior Owners never installed, operated or controlled the operation of the gasoline station on the Property; (ii) no evidence has ever been presented establishing that an unauthorized release of hydrocarbon product was identified or actually occurred on the Property before the Prior Owners sold the property, (iii)Del Monte acquired the Property' as a functional gas station without any indication that it intended to abandon such use, as it maintained the entire gas station facilities for years, removed product from the three 10,000 gallon underground petroleum storage tanks ("USTs") on the site, and added water to USTs while retaining all of such facilities fully intact(and useable), and (iv) the presence of TBA found in groundwater samples at the Property is inconsistent with a release occurring while the 1 The Property was actually acquired from Parmaceast by Calpack Properties, a California corporation ("Calpack"), which was an affiliate of Del Monte. Calpack Properties owned and operated various real properties for Del Monte and eventually was merged into Del Monte in 1991. The merger gave direct ownership of the Property to Del Monte; however, Del Monte had full control over Calpack and the Property at all times after Parmaceast sold it to Calpack. LAW OFFICES SAN FRANCISCO MARIN 333 MARKET STREET 23RD FLOOR 80 E.SIR FRANCIS DRAKE BLVD SUITEA SAN FRANCISCO CA 94105-2173 LARKSPUR CA 94939 TELEPHONE415J 7.3200 TELEPHONE415 925 8400 FACSIMILE415 541 9366 FACSIMILE415 925 M09 EMAIL HANSONVHBMVRCOM EMAIL GGIACOMINI®HBMVRCOM 761778.3