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6/10/2026
WT Staff
 Knowledge of an environmental crime? Give us a call at 877-52-WATER (877-529-2837), or email info@wtny.us
June 10, 2026 147 pm EDT
CrimeBox
Historic Conviction Fiscal Year 2014; Case ID# CR_2560 (Indiana)
An environmental services company avoided industrial waste treatment costs; later sentenced $200,000 for illegal dumping
The Defendants in this case are four; a corporation providing environmental services to industrial clients; the 47-yr old owner of the company and two employees. The co-defendants were charged with felony violation of the Clean Water Act, based on a Bill of Information presented to Federal District Court Indiana.
The corporate Defendant provided for the collection, hauling and lawful disposal of liquid industrial waste from customers, pumping out the hazardous liquids from client custody into the Defendant's tanker trucks. The waste was to be transported to a specialized treatment facility, with the concentrated waste stream transferred to an approved disposal facility.
For a period of six months in early 2008, the Defendants caused untreated liquid industrial waste to be taken to a shuttered treatment facility owned by one of the Defendants. At the abandoned facility, tanker truckloads of hazardous materials were dumped down the sewer drain leading to the local public treatment works.
Municipal wastewater treatment facilities are designed for handling domestic sewage. Public treatment works are quite unfit for industrial liquid waste, which can damage mains and equipment, and expose workers to serious risk with flammable, extreme high or low pH, corrosive and otherwise dangerous materials.
The owner of the company admitted to ordering his manager and drivers to unload at another of his properties, a closed industrial facility, to avoid paying for specialized treatment of the waste. The corporate defendant offered the guilty plea for negligent violation of a national pretreatment standard under the Clean Water Act. The Defendants admitted they had, "negligently discharged, trucked or hauled pollutants, including industrial, sanitary, and food industry-related wastes, into a publicly owned treatment works at a location that had not been designated, approved, or otherwise permitted."
The owner of the company was sentenced by Chief Judge Philip Simon to 4 years of probation, a $30,000 fine and 100 hours of community service for his role in the CWA crime. The corporation was sentenced to a federal fine of $70,000 plus restitution payable to the City of Hammond ($75,000) and to the Hammond Sanitary District ($25,000). The corporation was further sentenced to 4 years probation. The employees were sentenced separately based on their involvement in the illegal discharges. The first received a fine of $4000 and two years probation, the second received a fine of $1000, and a year of probation.
Federal Fine: $105,000; Restitution: $100,000; Community Service: 100 hours; Probation: 132 months
See last week's CrimeBox here, "Federal and Tribal Environmental Authorities team up to protect wetlands and water quality in Montana", here.
CrimeBox briefs are compiled from EPA Criminal Enforcement records.
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