The owner of a Fontana trucking company testified Thursday that she regularly delivered cash payments to a former executive with San Bernardino County's landfill operator.

When Patricia Hernandez took over as president of the Daniel Hernandez Trucking Company in 1995, she said she was instructed by her terminally ill husband to pay money to Kenneth James Walsh, then vice president of Norcal Waste Inc.

If she failed to pay, Hernandez said, she believed the company would lose its contract to haul dirt and compact trash at the landfill.

The payments, which Hernandez, 61, said she delivered in cash sums as large as $4,000 several times between 1996 and 1998, are part of the damages that the county is pursuing in its civil case against 10 defendants - who include businesses and former county officials - accused of defrauding the county of millions of dollars. The trial is in its fifth day in Ventura County Superior Court.

County officials say Walsh and two former county administrators, James Hlawek and Harry Mays, conspired to steer approval of a contract to privatize landfill operations to Norcal. The contract was worth hundreds of millions of dollars, according to the officials.

Leonard Gumport, an attorney representing the county in the civil suit, accused the three of extracting money from the subcontractor, for whom the Norcal contract accounted for as much as 90 percent of its earnings. County taxpayers were essentially billed for kickbacks that went through the trucking company to Walsh, Mays and Hlawek, he alleged.

Hernandez said she paid Walsh $2 for every truckload the company delivered. She did not recall the total amount but acknowledged about $210,000 worth of checks made out to cash that she said had gone to Walsh.

Hernandez also said she gave Walsh two checks made out to Mays' company, Bio-Reclamation Technologies, so her company could deduct the expenses as consulting fees. But she said she was told by Walsh to pay in cash; otherwise the contract would be in jeopardy.

Defense lawyer Randall Waier, who represents Mays, Bio-Reclamation Technologies and Walsh, questioned whether Hernandez would consider the payments to Walsh gifts.

"I guess you could call them gifts," she said with a dry laugh.

Later, when Gumport asked for clarification, she replied, "They were kickbacks."

Earlier, ex-county Supervisor Jerry Eaves concluded his testimony, answering questions about a landfill-related $90 million bond issue that the Board of Supervisors had approved.

The trial continues today.