Activists found guilty for trespassing at Niles injection well site

Staff report

NILES

The two activists arrested last month for blocking the entrance to an injection well on North Main Street in Weathersfield Township pleaded no contest Friday to trespassing and were found guilty.

Judge Thomas W. Townley of Niles Municipal Court fined John D. Williams, 57, of North Cleveland Avenue, Niles, and Mary C. Khumprakob, 21, of Glacier Heights Road, Youngstown, $50 and ordered each to pay $137 in court costs.

They were arrested at 10:30 a.m. Nov. 25 at the entrance to a well run by American Water Management of Howland just north of the North Road-Main Street intersection.

Township Police Chief Joe Consiglio said Williams and Khumprakob were charged with trespassing for blocking tanker trucks from getting into the facility.

About 50 people from Ohio and Pennsylvania took part in a nonviolent protest at the well that morning, the protesters said in a press release.