4/24/2025
WT Staff
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April 24, 2025 601 am EDT
SDWA CrimeBox
Historic Conviction Fiscal Year 2014; Case ID# CR_2539(Kentucky)
Four years of illegal waste disposal. Employees conspire with the company to violate SDWA
One of three criminal convictions under the Safe Drinking Water Act in Kentucky
The defendants in this case are two oil well operators and their company in Hart County, Kentucky. United States District Court Senior Judge Joseph H. McKinley Jr., presided over the case with David J. Hale, United States Attorney for the Western District of Kentucky prosecuting a string of felony violations of the Safe Drinking Water Act, from March 2008 to July 2012.
The well operators and Logsdon Valley Oil Co. Inc., were found injecting waste fluids into Kentucky wells and sinkholes without a permit, going on four years and four months before the perpetrators were caught at it.
The defendants entered a plea agreement, a federal fine to be divided between the Commonwealth of Kentucky, Environmental Protection Agency and the USA. The defendants were to prove to the court that the illegal injection well had been properly plugged and capped, to ensure no contamination of the groundwater aquifer. Groundwater is an source of drinking water for municipal water plants and private households. USGS estimated 40 million Americans rely on private wells for their drinking water as of 2019. Contamination of the groundwater has far reaching impacts on drinking water and public health.
See "Poisoning the Well - How Forever Chemicals Contaminated America", Interview with author Sharon Udasin, here.
According to the court documents, the individual defendants were charged in "an eight-count federal Superseding Indictment, on August 15, 2012, with conspiring to violate the Safe Drinking Water Act. They pleaded guilty to violating a requirement of an applicable underground injection control program. Specifically, they configured piping to inject produced brine water (fluids brought to the surface in connection with oil production) from the tank battery to sinkholes, and injected produced brine water into a sinkhole, and conveyed fluids into sinkholes, in violation of the Safe Drinking Water Act..."
Special Agent in Charge of EPA’s criminal enforcement program in Kentucky, Maureen O'Mara addressed the public:
“America’s environmental laws are designed to protect clean and safe water sources. The defendants ignored orders to stop discharging hazardous wastewater into a nearby sinkhole, thereby threatening groundwater quality by allowing harmful materials to enter below-ground aquifers. Today’s sentencing demonstrates that EPA and its partner agencies will actively pursue those who flout environmental laws designed to protect the public.”
Federal Fine: $45,000; Probation: 24 months each
See last week's CrimeBox, "Drunk texting incident triggers remote shutdown of a drinking water plant", here.
SDWA CrimeBox briefs are compiled from EPA Criminal Enforcement records.
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