MOBILE, ALABAMA MAN SENTENCED FOR DUMPING HAZARDOUS WASTE

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Thomas L. Sansonetti, Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division, and David P. York, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Alabama, announced today that Don Milton White of Mobile, Alabama was sentenced to serve 6 months in a community correction facility, 3 years supervised probation, pay $20,000 in restitution to the Environmental Protection Agency, and a $200 special assessment for having dumped hazardous waste at two abandoned industrial sites in the Mobile area. Additionally, within 2 weeks of today, Mr. White must place an advertisement in the local newspapers informing local residents that he had illegally dumped hazardous waste at the sites.

Mr. White pled guilty on May 17, 2004 to two felony charges under federal environmental protection law for the illegal disposal of hazardous waste. According to the indictment and the plea agreement, Mr. White admitted that he had been hired by the Escambia County Utility Authority in Pensacola, Florida to truck its waste, some of it hazardous, to a licensed facility in Louisiana. Instead, Mr. White dumped the waste oils, tar, paint residues, polymers, hydraulic fluid, and solvents at an abandoned industrial site off Baker Street in Mobile and at a defunct asphalt plant off of Highway 31 in Baldwin County.

Some of the hundreds of gallons of waste that Mr. White illegally discarded were highly corrosive liquid that is regulated under federal law as hazardous waste. The federal hazardous waste statute under which Mr. White was charged carries a maximum penalty of up to five years in jail and a fine of up to $250,000 per count.

“Mr. White endangered the environment by disregarding the law when he wrongly disposed of the hazardous waste in this case,” said Assistant Attorney General Thomas Sansonetti. “Individuals who place their own profit before the law will be brought to justice.”

“Today's sentence should send a clear message to those who think they can bypass our laws and dump hazardous wastes,” said David McLeod, Resident Agent in Charge, Environmental Protection Agency. “It also demonstrates that we take these violations seriously and will vigorously work with our state and federal counterparts to find those who despoil our environment.”

Agents from the FBI and members of the Alabama Department of Environmental Management assisted in this case and initially discovered the dump site after which they promptly notified the EPA.

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