Hauler Gets Fine and Probation for Dumping Asbestos
September 19th, 2007
A federal judge in the Baltimore area has sentenced the owner of a waste-hauling company to five years probation and has also ordered him to pay more than $55,000 in restitution after the man left eight trailers full of asbestos on an empty lot in Severn, Maryland.
According to an article in the Baltimore Sun, Terrance Yates of Pasadena, CA pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court to the violation, which included falsifying documents stating that he had dumped the toxic material at an approved landfill in Pennsylvania. A spokesperson for the U.S. attorney’s office said that Yates was also ordered to perform 200 hours of community service.
The newspaper account of the case noted that Yates, who owned and operated Hazport Solutions Inc. in Severn, had contracted with several companies to take about a dozen trailers full of asbestos from sites in Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia to the EPA’s approved landfill in Pennsylvania. But instead of taking the toxic waste to Pennsylvania, Yates left the trailers on the empty lot. State regulators discovered them about a year later.
He then sent waste shipment records to the companies, falsely certifying that the asbestos had been disposed of at the Pennsylvania landfill, authorities said.
According to records, the trailers were not lined with plastic and no signs were posted indicating that they contained asbestos, as federal requirements mandate. Some of the bags had been damaged and loose asbestos-containing debris was found scattered in the trailers.
The EPA required the original contractors for the renovation and demolition sites to remove the asbestos and properly dispose of it. The cleanup took four months and cost about $57,000, the EPA reports.
