After a running battle with authorities in the Kent, Wash., area, could Japanese Auto Wrecking be moving to Seattle?
That's the fear of residents and business owners in the Georgetown neighborhood south of downtown. A consultant affiliated with Japanese Auto has been moving old cars onto a vacant lot he leased. He also brought in three large shipping containers he got from Japanese Auto, as well as an earth-moving machine and a small portable building.
Jeff Kato says a separate business, not affiliated with the former Japanese Auto Wrecking in Kent, is moving to the new site.
The neighbors are worried because they heard that investigators found evidence of indiscriminate dumping at Japanese Auto's old site near the Green River. One investigator said he had never seen such blatant disregard for environmental laws.
The owner, Wei Guo "Larry" Huang, was charged with four misdemeanors relating to operations and record-keeping at the Kent site.
But Japanese Auto's consultant, Jeff Kato, said this week that Huang is not involved in the Georgetown venture and that he, Kato, is not opening a wrecking yard -- just storing cars there.
"This is my own little thing. This has nothing to do with Larry," Kato said. "I've got to get the EPA straightened out on this."
That whirlpool of accusations dates at least to last year, when a Washington State Patrol investigator says Japanese Auto illegally crushed hundreds of cars without proper records to prove they weren't stolen.
The firm's landlord later alerted the EPA about pollution at the site. Eventually, Japanese Auto was evicted. Huang set up shop at a new location, 24141 Pacific Highway S.
Japanese Auto workers at the first property "could have done better housekeeping," Kato and Huang have acknowledged. But the site also was polluted before the company moved in, according to government records Kato found. Huang, who came from Hong Kong, has said he is being persecuted because he is Asian.
Kato describes himself as a consultant to Japanese Auto. He has helped the company deal with a number of government agencies whose officials describe him as closely affiliated with the company.
Workers at the Seattle Iron & Metals yard across the street from Kato's new location said they had been told by men who moved in old vehicles that the wrecking yard would be open for business in a few weeks.
That worries neighbors.
Kato says he is only storing cars on the property until they can be exported for sale overseas. Seattle Post-Intelligencer