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Jennifer A. Scott, Esq. August 27, 2009 Page 2 of 4 Contaminant Level established by the Department of Health Services. Moreover, we have confirmed that your client's primary waste impoundment, which holds at least 17 million gallons of raw, liquid animal waste and other potentially harmful materials, is unlined, and is deep enough to transect at least one, possibly two water bearing zones. Unlike other local dairies that have gone to great lengths to ensure that their waste impoundments do not adversely impact groundwater, for all intents and purposesyour client's primary waste impoundment was constructed and operates as a direct conduit to groundwater. We have information--which we are in the process of confirming-- suggesting that your client dug the waste impoundment to a depth potentially exceeding fifty-feet, meaning that the intermediate water bearing zone, where most local domestic wells are screened,may be directly receiving raw, liquid animal waste. Your client has been provided with the sampling results demonstrating the unlawful impacts to groundwater from its operations, and we understand that your client took split samples during our investigative activities that yielded statistically comparable results. Once your client came into possession of such data, an affirmative obligation existed on your client's part to notify the appropriate regulatory agencies and to undertake investigative and mitigative activities. In contravention of applicable law, your client has failed to notify the appropriate regulatory agencies or to undertake investigative and mitigative activities; to add insult to injury, your client has installed a series of monitoring wells to assess groundwater gradient, but has vigilantly avoided performing any groundwater quality analysis with these wells—our investigation suggests that your client has gone so far as to withhold the existence of these wells from the Regional Water Quality Control Board. From the outset of this lawsuit, my client has made his goals very clear in that he is not interested in financial remuneration, but rather wants your client to cease operating the dairy in an unlawful manner, and to abate the adverse environmental impacts that such unlawful operations have caused to date, including the creation and maintenance of conditions of public and private nuisance, and the creation and maintenance of conditions that pose an imminent and substantial endangerment to public health and to the environment. Based on the foregoing,my client demands as follows: 1. Pursuant to California Health and Safety Code §25355.5(a)(1)(C), your client shall enter into a Voluntary Cleanup A rcement ("VCA") with the Department of Toxic Substances Control ("DTSC") , Z While the Regional Board is the putative agency overseeing your client's operations, DTSC should be the lead agency given the existence of an imminent and substantial endangerment to public health, including impacts to local domestic wells. Further, the Regional Board's historic peculiarly lax oversight of the Lima Ranch dictates that my client's and the public's interests would be better served with DTSC serving in a lead role.