Three years ago, the Orange County District Attorney announced a massive $27.6 million settlement with Wal-Mart, Inc., one of the largest payouts involving environmental pollution in state history. In Dec., 2010, the Weekly interviewed a whistleblower in the case, former manager Kathrine Shimaji, who complained that the illegal dumping of pesticides and other hazardous chemicals had been carried out at a Foothill Ranch store in 2005 at the instruction of other managers, and that higher-ups had ignored her complaints and covered up evidence of the crimes.
It has now, though.
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Yesterday, the company pleaded guilty in San Francisco to illegal dumping in California between 2006 and 2008, as well as in Missouri. This time, Wal-Mart is paying out $81 million. According to NBC News, Walmart has officially taken responsibility for the fact that it allowed employees to dump hazardous materials–usually in the form of damaged bags of fertilizer that could not be stocked as merchandise–in the trash or in sewer drains.
Wal-Mart claims it has since retrained employees on how to properly dispose of hazardous waste and also has armed them with scanners that allow them to automatically detect any such materials. It has also promised to fund environmental projects in neighborhoods affected by the company's past misconduct.
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Award-winning investigative journalist Nick Schou is Editor of OC Weekly. He is the author of Kill the Messenger: How the CIA’s Crack Cocaine Controversy Destroyed Journalist Gary Webb (Nation Books 2006), which provided the basis for the 2014 Focus Features release starring Jeremy Renner and the L.A. Times-bestseller Orange Sunshine: The Brotherhood of Eternal Love’s Quest to bring Peace, Love and Acid to the World, (Thomas Dunne 2009). He is also the author of The Weed Runners (2013) and Spooked: How the CIA Manipulates the Media and Hoodwinks Hollywood (2016).