EvilCorporations.com • Docket No. RCRA-09-2026-0032 • 1 min read

The Workers Nobody Trained to Handle Toxic Waste

A Los Angeles hazardous waste company agreed to a federal enforcement settlement in January 2026 after the EPA found it was handling toxic materials without properly training the people doing the work. The company’s name is Pacific Resource Recovery Services. The federal law it violated is the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. The docket number is RCRA-09-2026-0032.

What The Documents Can’t Quantify

Somewhere in Los Angeles, there are workers who handled hazardous materials and were never told what those materials could do to a human body. They were not told because the company they worked for did not comply with the federal standards that exist specifically to require that training. They clocked in, did the job, and went home, possibly carrying something invisible with them.

The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act was written because the United States had already learned, the hard way, what happens when toxic waste gets treated like ordinary garbage. The law imposes specific obligations on the people who run hazardous waste operations: you train your workers, you document the training, you follow the handling protocols. These are not suggestions. They are the minimum floor. Pacific Resource Recovery Services did not meet that floor, and the EPA had to file a formal docket to force the issue.

What makes this story ugly in a way a docket number cannot capture is the geography. The facility sits on E Pico Blvd. in Los Angeles, 90023. That zip code is a working-class, majority-Latino community. The people who live and work there did not choose to be downwind of or next door to a hazardous waste operation. They certainly did not choose for that operation to be running out of compliance. They were simply there, and the company that was supposed to be the responsible steward of toxic materials decided, for whatever internal reason, that the federal rules didn’t need to apply to them right now.

The enforcement action was served by email. Not a press release, not a public hearing, not a community notification. An email to the company president’s inbox. The people who live on E Pico Blvd. will not receive an email. They will not be told that their neighborhood hosts a facility that just settled a federal hazardous waste enforcement case. That is how environmental enforcement works in communities that don’t have lobbyists: quietly, at the administrative level, with a signature from the president of the company and no cameras in the room.

Straight From The Document

The following is drawn verbatim from the Certificate of Service filed by the U.S. EPA Region IX, Regional Hearing Clerk, on January 12, 2026. These are the official words of the federal government, not our characterization of them.

“I hereby certify the foregoing Expedited Settlement Agreement and Final Order in the matter of Pacific Resources Recovery Services (Docket No. RCRA-09-2026-0032) was filed by the Regional Hearing Clerk, U.S. EPA, Region IX, 75 Hawthorne Street, San Francisco, CA 94105, and that a true and correct copy of the same was served on the parties, via electronic mail.”

• The term “Expedited Settlement Agreement” confirms this was a fast-track resolution. The EPA’s expedited process is used when violations are clear and the agency seeks quick compliance without extended litigation, meaning the evidence was strong enough that the company chose to settle rather than fight.
• The designation “Final Order” carries legal weight: this is not a warning letter or a notice of inspection. It is a binding enforcement action with legal standing, signed off by a federal body with authority to impose penalties under RCRA.
• The docket number RCRA-09-2026-0032 places this in EPA Region IX (which covers California, Nevada, Arizona, Hawaii, and Pacific territories) and identifies it as the 32nd RCRA enforcement docket opened in that region in 2026, indicating this is an active enforcement environment, not a one-off anomaly.

“RESPONDENT(S): Veeken H. Tashjian, President, Pacific Resource Recovery Services, 3150 E Pico Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90023”

• The order names the company president directly as the respondent. Under RCRA enforcement, naming the individual officer establishes personal accountability, not just corporate liability. This means the president of the company is the named party bound by the Final Order.
• The facility address, 3150 E Pico Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90023, places this operation inside a dense residential and commercial corridor. This is not an isolated industrial park; it is embedded in a neighborhood where people live.

“COMPLAINANT: Andrew Helmlinger, Supervisory Attorney Adviser, U.S. EPA – Region IX, Hazardous Waste Section I (ORC-3-1)”

• The complainant is the EPA’s own Supervisory Attorney Adviser for the Hazardous Waste Section. This signals the case was handled at a supervisory level, not by a junior inspector. The involvement of a supervisory attorney in the formal service documents indicates this was treated as a significant enforcement matter within the region.
• Hazardous Waste Section I (ORC-3-1) is the EPA’s dedicated RCRA enforcement unit for Region IX. This is not a generalist office; these are the agency’s specialists in hazardous waste law, meaning the legal scrutiny applied to Pacific Resource Recovery Services came from people who do this work every day.

Who Actually Pays When Hazardous Waste Rules Break Down

Public Health

Improper hazardous waste handling directly threatens the bodies of workers and residents. RCRA violations at an active recovery facility create multiple documented exposure pathways.

• Workers at Pacific Resource Recovery Services who handled hazardous materials without mandated training faced exposure risks they were never given the tools to understand or protect themselves against. RCRA’s training requirements exist specifically because uninformed workers are the first point of contact with toxic materials.
• The facility at 3150 E Pico Blvd. operates in a dense urban neighborhood. Improper storage, labeling, or handling of hazardous materials at such a location creates spill, leak, and air release risks that extend beyond the facility boundary into residential and commercial spaces where people live and work daily.
• Communities of color and working-class neighborhoods in Los Angeles already carry a disproportionate toxic burden from industrial facilities. Zip code 90023 is documented as an environmental justice community under California’s CalEnviroScreen tool, meaning residents here already face cumulative pollution impacts above the state average before factoring in any additional hazardous waste violations.

Economic Inequality

The financial and systemic costs of hazardous waste non-compliance are not shared equally. The people least able to absorb those costs bear the most exposure.

• Workers in the hazardous waste industry, particularly in facilities like this one serving the Los Angeles basin, are disproportionately low-wage employees with limited access to employer-provided health insurance. If a worker at this facility develops a health condition tied to toxic exposure, the cost of diagnosis and treatment falls on them and their families, not on the company that failed to train them.
• Small businesses and residents near the facility face property value suppression and health costs that compound over time. Environmental enforcement violations at nearby facilities are documented to reduce property values in surrounding neighborhoods, transferring corporate liability into neighborhood-level economic harm.
• The expedited settlement process resolves the government’s enforcement interest efficiently, but it does not include any mechanism for direct compensation to affected workers or community members. The financial penalty, whatever its amount, flows to the federal government, not to the people closest to the harm.

What The Numbers Say About Priorities

Where To Push, Who To Watch, and How To Act

The enforcement order is signed. The settlement is final. What happens next depends entirely on whether anyone outside the EPA’s San Francisco office is paying attention.

Key Parties Named in the Order

• Veeken H. Tashjian, President, Pacific Resource Recovery Services, is the named respondent. He is the individual legally bound by the Final Order.
• Andrew Helmlinger, Supervisory Attorney Adviser, U.S. EPA Region IX, Hazardous Waste Section I (ORC-3-1), is the complainant. His office handles RCRA enforcement for the western United States.

Watchlist: Regulatory Bodies With Jurisdiction

• U.S. EPA Region IX, Hazardous Waste Section. This is the agency that brought this action. If the Final Order’s compliance requirements are not met, this office has authority to escalate.
• California Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC). California operates its own authorized hazardous waste program under RCRA. DTSC has independent authority to inspect and enforce against facilities operating in California, including Pacific Resource Recovery Services.
• California Environmental Protection Agency (CalEPA). The parent agency of DTSC. Community members can file complaints directly through CalEPA’s intake systems.
• Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, Environmental Health Division. Local public health authority with jurisdiction to investigate environmental health complaints near the 90023 zip code.
• Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), Region IX. Worker training failures at hazardous waste facilities are also OSHA jurisdiction under HAZWOPER (29 CFR 1910.120). A failure to train workers on hazardous waste operations is simultaneously an RCRA violation and potentially an OSHA violation.

What You Can Do

• If you live or work near 3150 E Pico Blvd., Los Angeles, document any unusual odors, spills, or visible waste handling and report them to the California DTSC complaint hotline and to Los Angeles County Environmental Health. Your report creates a paper trail the EPA and DTSC cannot ignore.
• Contact East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice (EYCEJ), a community organization based in Commerce, CA, which has long organized around environmental justice in the communities east of downtown Los Angeles. They have the infrastructure to turn individual complaints into collective pressure.
• Request the full Expedited Settlement Agreement and Final Order (Docket No. RCRA-09-2026-0032) through a FOIA request to U.S. EPA Region IX. The source document used for this article covers only the Certificate of Service. The penalty amount and compliance schedule are in the full order and are public records.
• If you are a worker who handled hazardous materials at this facility, contact a workers’ compensation attorney or California’s Division of Workers’ Compensation (DWC). You have rights under both California law and federal HAZWOPER standards regardless of the outcome of this EPA enforcement action.