Marina del Rey location included in lawsuit
By Dolores Quintana
A civil judgment against the Delaware-based hotelier Ritz Carlton was handed down by a judge in Riverside County on August 8. The lawsuit was filed in Riverside County Superior Court and Riverside County District Attorney Mike Hestrin and the District Attorneys of Orange, Los Angeles, Placer, Santa Barbara, San Francisco, and San Mateo counties and the Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office jointly filed the lawsuit and the Riverside County DA announced this outcome on August 10.
This lawsuit alleged that high end The Ritz Carlton Hotel Chain, in it’s eight hotels in California, was illegally disposing of hazardous waste. The Ritz Carlton was the subject of an investigation which found that “instead of storing, transporting, and disposing of hazardous waste at authorized hazardous waste facilities, The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company illegally disposed of hazardous waste in the trash and illegally transported it to local landfills not permitted to receive such waste product. The hazardous waste included, but was not limited to, batteries, electronic devices, ignitable liquids, aerosol products, cleaning agents, and other flammable, reactive, toxic, and corrosive materials.”
The settlement was for $400,000 in civil penalties and $35,000 in cost reimbursement. An additional $100,000 will go to fund environmental projects furthering environmental enforcement in California. The County of Riverside, which has a Ritz Carlton Hotel in the city of Rancho Mirage, will receive $91,000 in civil penalties and $14,513 in cost reimbursement. The Riverside County Department of Environmental Health will also receive $6,000 in civil penalties and $2,000 in cost reimbursement.
There are two Ritz Carlton hotels in Los Angeles county and city area, one in the city of Los Angeles, hence the involvement of the Los Angeles City Attorney and the city of Marina Del Rey on the Westside of Los Angeles. There was no specific information on the settlement amounts that would go to the counties and the City of Los Angeles.
According to the Riverside County DA’s press release, “The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company has implemented improved policies and procedures as well as improved training programs to properly manage and dispose of hazardous waste. The company’s hazardous waste is now collected by state-registered haulers to properly transport it to authorized disposal facilities and is being properly documented.”
