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Grand jury indicts company, owners, for dumping
By Joe Gorman
YOUNGSTOWN
A Mahoning County grand jury Thursday handed up indictments against a pair of businessmen and a company they work for, charging them with illegal dumping in 2012 and 2013.
David J. Gennaro Sr., 69, of Silver Fox Run and Frank A. Naples, 66, of Thunderbird Drive in Poland, along with Gennaro’s company, Soil Remediation Inc., each face five counts of open dumping of solid wastes, illegal operation of a solid-waste landfill without a license, complicity to illegal air permit violation/illegal storage of petroleum contaminated soil, illegal disposal of drilling fluids and illegal disposal of other drilling-production waste.
The first two counts are unclassified felonies, and the other three are unclassified misdemeanors.
The charges were presented to the grand jury by the Environmental Enforcement Section of the state attorney general’s office.
Gennaro, Naples and the company are accused of illegally dumping solid waste without permission at a 6065 Arrel-Smith Road property in Lowellville between June 26, 2012, and April 23, 2013.
Naples, who was called a plant manager of Soil Remediation in court documents, and Gennaro, the owner of Soil Remediation and Gennaro Pavers, are both accused of operating the landfill for 590 days. The indictment says that for 115 days between Jan. 30, 2013, and Sept. 11, 2013, waste products associated with drilling for natural gas, including surface-water brine, crude oil and natural gas, were illegally dumped there.
The site has been investigated by the state since 2013, both by the state Environmental Protection Agency and the attorney general’s office. A call for comment to the attorney general’s office for more information was referred to the state EPA, which then referred a reporter to the attorney general’s office.
A call to one of the attorneys who presented the case to the grand jury was not returned.