A vast toxic waste dump at the center of a birth defects controversy in Central California has been fined more than $300,000 for allowing cancer-causing chemicals to leach into the soil, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said Tuesday.
Residents near the Kettleman Hills dump previously expressed concerns that the largest hazardous waste dump in the West was linked to a high rate of birth defects among children.
However, state health officials said they have not identified a common cause of the problems in the Central California community.
EPA officials said Chemical Waste Management was being fined because the dump failed to clean up soil tainted with PCBs. The facility is one of just 10 dumps nationwide that handles polychlorinated biphenyls, a now-banned transformer fluid.
"Companies charged with safely disposing of society's most toxic materials need to rigorously follow the protective laws established to secure both the public safety and public trust," said Jared Blumenfeld, the EPA's Regional Administrator for the Pacific Southwest.
The landfill is near Kettleman City, an impoverished San Joaquin Valley farm town where 11 cases of cleft palates and other birth defects have been reported since 2007.
EPA officials did not immediately say whether the disposal problems had any ties to health risks but noted the company is in the final stages of completing a study about human health or environmental risk of PCBs migrating off-site
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