“Not long after Trutanich\u2019s loss, Advanced Cleanup sued BP America, alleging that it had only paid a small fraction of the $4 million it said it was owed, according to court documents filed in 2014. Both companies eventually settled two years later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This was the high point for Garcia. After considerable testing and evaluation, the California Air Resources Board had approved his application to run the emissions control barge in October 2015, and it began operating in Long Beach Harbor shortly after that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Garcia called the barge a \u201cgame-changer in the fields of emission control and air quality\u201d that could remove thousands of tons of pollutants every year, in a news release at the time. Port officials agreed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s really important to have it available to vessels in the Port of Long Beach,\u201d said Matt Arms, the port\u2019s environmental planning director.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Good publicity started rolling in soon after the barge began operations. The Los Angeles Business Journal profiled him<\/a>. Grist magazine even reported<\/a> that Garcia envisioned operating a fleet of 20 barges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe\u2019ve come to think of the tech world\u2019s heroes as well-educated, creative people who dream of saving our world with their ideas,\u201d Grist reported on March 24, 2016. \u201cRuben Garcia\u2019s story is nothing like that. Born in Mexico, he grew up as an undocumented farmworker, picking onions when he was just 5 years old, and never attended college. But Garcia\u2019s remarkable innovations are helping to clean up the shipping industry.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n But at the same time, Garcia had stopped paying some bills, according to court records (though they aren\u2019t specific on why he stopped). Just a year after his barge started operations in Long Beach, Judge Christina Snyder attached two earlier creditors of Advanced to the BP America case and ordered Garcia to pay them. But when Advanced deposited a check for its portion of the settlement, it bounced, according to court documents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Snyder then found Advanced in contempt and ordered it to pay a $250 fine for each day they were out of compliance with her 2017 order to pay the two creditors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n According to Carmen Batriz, one of the creditors, the company has never paid those fines. \u201cRuben Garcia has not appeared and has not paid any portion of the fine ordered by the court,\u201d she said in a July 13 email. \u201cAs of this date, the accumulated amount of the court-ordered fine would be $310,500.00.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n As for the actual settlement with her, Batriz said that the company \u201cpaid $18,944 and failed to pay the balance of the settlement amount of $33,000.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n A June 2021 court filing from Garcia\u2019s attorney lists more than 50 creditors, including investors, various tax collectors, attorneys and utilities. (One of the investors suing Garcia in bankruptcy court is Pacific6 Environmental LLC, which is a subsidiary of Pacific6, owner of Pacific Community Media, the parent company of the Long Beach Post).<\/p>\n\n\n\n A bankruptcy court filing in March from Signal Hill-based GOLO Inc. estimated \u201cwell in excess of $70 million\u201d in unpaid creditor claims for Garcia\u2019s companies over the last two decades. The documents paint Garcia\u2019s businesses as something akin to a Ponzi scheme.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n All readings above are provided from <\/a>Long Beach Post.<\/a><\/em><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n