By Mike Koepf - Anderson Valley Advertiser, April 4, 1989
The man is large—extremely large—beyond or pushing 300 lbs. easily. He’s also articulate. The words and sentences flow effortlessly from his lips. A close-trimmed beard adds false length to an otherwise round but once handsome face. The hair on his head is swept back and over an emerging bald spot on the rear of his skull. The color of his hair is blond but it has an unusual tint—a subtle hint of orange suggesting non-genetic origin. Proliferating antipode tissue makes his tweed sport jacket bulge at the seams. The stems of his glasses make tight furrows in the puffy flesh at the sides of his temples.
As head of Mendocino County’s Public Health program, Dr. Craig McMillan is one of the highest paid bureaucrats in Mendocino County. He receives well over sixty-thousand dollars plus hefty perks every year. He oversees County, State, and Federal tax monies which flow through his offices in a fast moving two-million dollar annual river: milk programs for poor children, AIDS testing, health clinics, immunizations, vital statistics, VD control, family planning, environmental health, all this and much more comes under the supervision and control of Dr. McMillan.
At the Board of Supervisors’ meeting of March 27, concerned members of the public and the supervisors themselves had some questions and concerns about just how well individuals under Dr. McMillan control have been doing their jobs in protecting people in this county from various forms of toxic contamination.
Two specific issues concerning McMillan’s jurisdiction came under scrutiny by the board: a recent report by the California Air Quality Control Board concerning Mendocino County’s Air Pollution Control District; and the recent toxic PCB spill at the Georgia-Pacific mill in Fort Bragg.
The State report was not particularly flattering to those charged with protecting air quality in this county. Late last year when state agents conducted a spot check of air pollution in our area, McMillan’s Pollution Control District—for all intents and purposes—flunked. The report itself actually reads as near comedy written in bureaucratic gobbly-gook. For instance, a check on possible pollution emanating from the stack of the Masonite mill in Ukiah was made from the parking lot of the nearby Carl Jr’s hamburger stand (“Looks okay from here”) The test for air quality at the G-P mill in Fort Bragg was also done “visually,” as were all other pollution checks of atmospheric emissions throughout the county. In the G-P ease, the inspector reported that there was too much “fog” to determine one way or another whether contaminants were spewing from the G-P stacks. The inspector reports that a second look-see was taken at the G-P smoke but this time since the observation was taken from over a quarter mile away, the observation was not valid. The mind numbs at the “Alice in Wonderland” methodology.
In its report, the California Air Resources Board Compliance Division found that Robert Swan, head of McMillan’s Pollution Control District, had not been certified for over two years. They also discovered that 47.6% of emission checks were made over the telephone without on-sight inspection as state law requires. According to the report, local violators were routinely excused by phone, and fines were left uncollected while the Mendocino Pollution Control District coffers were starved for funds. Shortly after the state report came out Mr. Swan resigned. McMillan has not filled the position although he claims to be interviewing candidates for Swan’s old seat. The report was issued by the state in January of this year.
Several members of the public and a representative from “See Far,” a clean air group from Ukiah, made comments to the board concerning the A.R.B. report. No one seemed particularly pleased with the report’s conclusions and implications. David Drell of Willits made the strongest and most direct re-marks. He severely criticized Dr. McMillan for condoning air pollution control policies that “accept as gospel truth what industry and potential polluters report.” He recommended that McMillan “be dismissed.”
McMillan defended his Pollution Control District by informing the board the Mendocino County is a “rural area” and can’t be held to the same standards the state sets for, say, Los Angeles County. He cited the hypothetical case of a small print shop in Point Arena that might in the course of a year use only four gallons of air-polluting chemicals, thus not scrutinized with the same intensity as a large printing concern in the middle of an urban area. He also mentioned L.A.’s upcoming laws concerning back-yard barbecues. At this point eyes were rolling in the audience. Only Supervisor Butcher seemed pleased with McMillan’s irrational attempts at deflection. At one point Butcher interrupted McMillan to announce how difficult state regulations made it for her to light two smudge pots in her fruit orchard during cold spells. For some odd reason she declared the rules and regulations for smudge pots compared to those for “porta-potties” but no one in chambers save, hopefully, Madame Butcher knew what she was talking about. In the course of McMillan’s “rural” defense of the state’s negative audit of his pollution district, he neglected to mention the obvious fact that two of the most potentially troublesome sources of pollution in Mendocino County sit in the near epicenters of two concentrated urban populations. Those potential sources are the Georgia-Pacific mill in Fort Bragg and the Masonite plant in Ukiah both, both of which burn tons of waste material every year.
Which brings us to the PCB spill in Fort Bragg. This reporter gave at the supervisors’ meeting a brief summation of an article I wrote on the G-P PCB spill for this paper. I simply spoke of what had been reported to me by workers who labored on the site of the spill for some time before the company ad-mitted that the workers had in fact been exposed to PCBs. I reported that when I asked for a Health Department report of the spill all I received was a Georgia-Pacific “summary” of the events. G-P workers involved in the spill told me that not one of them was contacted by anyone from the Mendocino County Department of Public Health. Phone interviews with individuals from Public Health confirmed this. I also told the board that G-P workers also stated that as part of an early clean-up attempt of the PCBs, contaminated saw dust and paper towels were burned in the Fort Bragg plant’s power-producing incinerator. At the conclusion of these remarks, Dr. McMillan came forward and asked to be heard by the Board of Supervisors.
He was angry. He said he was “very upset about people coming up here and criticizing employees who work for me. It really ticks me off.” He then called the board’s attention to a “FACT SHEET” that his Health Department compiled on the ‘PCB SPILL GEORGIA-PACIFIC.” The date on the sheet is March 27, one day before the Board of Supervisors’ meeting. The report is unsigned. It is typed entirely in upper case letters. It is not on Health Department stationery and is a brief three-pages long. The contents of this “FACT SHEET” may have been compiled by McMillan or his agents to dispel complaints of his department’s role in the Fort Bragg PCB spill, but if that was his or their intention, they have done themselves a disservice while at the same time adding to the general public unease.
The “FACT SHEET” appears as a confused chronology. It seems solely devised to get the Health Department off the hook. Halfway through page three it states: “DEPARTMENT IS HERE (at a meeting with G-P management) TO ADVISE IN THIS MATTER AND THAT THE REGULATORY AUTHORITY IS OSHA AND NOT THE PUBLIC HEALTH DEPARTMENT.” Despite this bold-faced disclaimer, a little farther down the page we read that, at G-P’s request, McMillan’s Health Department sent a letter to G-P ten days after the incident “DECLARING SCENE SAFE AS PER THEIR REQUEST.” And whether McMillan knows it or not, G-P then used this letter to convince Federal OSHA officials that “the area is safe.” In other words, the Health Department’s position is, although we are not responsible, we can be used as a source of responsibility when so requested by giant corporations.
Which leads to the sad conclusion of Dr. McMillan’s alleged “FACT SHEET” which begins:
“GEORGIA PACIFICS (sic) ACCOUNT OF THE EVENTS SURROUNDING THIS MATTER ARE (sic) ESSENTIALLY CORRECT TO OUR KNOWLEDGE. GP WAS ABOVE BOARD IN THIS MATTER AS FAR AS WE KNOW…”
Dr. McMillan might like to explain his conclusions to Frank Murray, who had several gallons of PCB showered into his face and mouth. Or the welders G-P directed to burn over an oily PCB contaminated floor for two days while continuing to tell them the PCB label on the burst capacitor above their heads had not really contained toxic oils at all. Or the shifts of workers who came and went in the sticky oil and then went home to their homes and families or Treva VandenBosch who did not believe that black was white and the liquid that irritated her face and hands was “mineral oil.” Dr. McMillan, who indignantly defends his incompetent underlings from charges of criminal negligence, is in no rush to protect us, the citizens of Mendocino County, from the assault of public disease and toxic threat.
We live in a time of increasing chemical assault. We also live in an age of burgeoning bureaucratic self-interest. The governmental process democratically devised to protect us has become a corpulent monster growing daily fatter and fatter with regulation and self reward. The system feeds off us without caring for us. It is now time to look the immense pig in its recessed eyes and strike it low before it devours us all.