12/6/2023
WT STaff
Clean Water Act CrimeBox
Environmental Crimes Historic Conviction: Fiscal Year 1996; Case ID# CR_648
One of 56 Criminal Prosecutions in Ohio under the Clean Water Act (from 1989-2020)
Cyanide-laced water dumped into Cuyahoga River tributary
The defendant in this case is a metallurgical engineer owner and founder of a corporation engaged in metal finishing in Cleveland. The defendant pled guilty to the Clean Water Act charge for releasing a pollutant into navigable water of the USA.
The federal district court in Ohio received a guilty plea in July 1995 from the defendant, a Cleveland metals finishing business founder, with information presented indicating the company responsible for piping cyanide-contaminated industrial process water to a ditch, where it ran into Kingsberg River, a tributary of the Cuyahoga River.
From the National Institutes of Health National Library of Medicine, "Compounds containing cyanide ions are rapidly acting poison, as they disrupt the process of cellular respiration." The effects of cyanide in the environment, specifically in an aquatic environment, is devastating. From an article published in Environmental Science and Pollution Research International journal May 2017 by Ewa Jaszczak of the Department of Analytical Chemistry, Faculty of Chemistry, Gdansk, Poland "Cyanide toxicity and their environmental impact are well known. Nevertheless, they are still used in the mining, galvanic and chemical industries." Unfortunately without a safer alternative, harmful contaminants are still used in industrial processes.
The defendant was sentenced to a federal fine, restitution and probation.
Federal fine: $5,000; Restitution: $1000 Probation: 12 months
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