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WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida today accepted the guilty plea of Gary Benkovitz, owner of Bay Drum and Steel, Inc. in Tampa, who admitted that he knowingly discharged polluted wastewater in violation of the federal Clean Water Act (CWA) and the Resource and Conservation Recovery Act (RCRA).

Benkovitz pleaded guilty on March 3, 1999, to criminal charges that between January 1997 and March 1998, he ordered his employees to illegally discharge wastewater into a storm sewer that empties into Tampa's McKay Bay. Benkovitz also admitted that he directed employees of Bay Drum, which buys and reconditions used storage drums, to dump polluted wastewater on property adjacent to Bay Drum's 43^rd Street facility from April until June 1998. During these periods, the company generated thousands of gallons of wastewater each week containing several pollutants, including spent pesticides and methyl chloride, a highly toxic solvent.

Moreover, Benkovitz acknowledged that he committed these environmental crimes while awaiting sentencing for similar crimes at a different Bay Drum facility in Tampa. In September 1998, Benkovitz and Bay Drum pleaded guilty to conspiring to violate the CWA and RCRA in U.S. District Court in Tampa. In the earlier case, Benkovitz admitted that he and his employees illegally discharged wastewater polluted with heavy metals from the company's Madison Street facility into the city sewer system, from February 1990 until August 1996. Benkovitz also admitted that he paid Tampa sanitation employees to illegally transport hazardous waste generated at the Madison facility to the City of Tampa incinerator.

"To environmental criminals we send this message: Those who knowingly pollute and threaten public health and safety will be aggressively prosecuted," said Lois Schiffer, Assistant Attorney General for Environment and Natural Resources at the U.S. Department of Justice. "There is no excuse for knowingly dumping hazardous waste into McKay Bay. The people of Tampa deserve better."

Charles R. Wilson, U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Florida said, "Environmental crime strikes at the heart of our quality of life with long-term consequences, threatening our delicate ecosystem. Prosecuting such crimes remains a top-priority in this district." Benkovitz faces a maximum sentence of five years imprisonment for the RCRA violation and a maximum sentence of three years imprisonment for the CWA violations at the 43^rd Street facility. He also faces a maximum sentence of five years imprisonment for his criminal activity at the Madison Street facility. Benkovitz faces a maximum fine of $250,000 per count for the conspiracy and RCRA charges and a maximum fine of up to $50,000 per day of violation under the CWA.

In the Madison Street case, the company faces a maximum fine of $500,000 per count for RCRA and conspiracy charges and a fine of up to $50,000 per day for violations of the CWA at that site. Sentencing for crimes at both facilities is scheduled for June 18, 1999.

The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Terri Donaldson and Eduardo Toro-Font in Tampa and by trial attorney Daniel Dooher in the Environmental Crimes Section of the Justice Department. The case was investigated by the U.S. EPA Criminal Investigation Division and the FBI, with assistance from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, the Hillsborough County Emergency Protection Commission and the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office.

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