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Fourth defendant charged in Lupo brine dumping
YOUNGSTOWN
A fourth defendant has been charged with violating the Clean Water Act in the dumping of oil-field waste into a Mahoning River tributary, the U.S. Attorney announced Thursday.
The case against Mark A. Goff, 46, of Newton Falls, an employee of Hardrock Excavating LLC, had been filed and sealed last April, and was unsealed in Cleveland.
Unlike the other three defendants — Hardrock, its owner Ben Lupo and another of Lupo’s employees, Michael P. Guesman, Goff was charged in an information, which means he waived his right to be indicted by a grand jury.
The information says Goff emptied waste liquid from storage tanks on Salt Springs Road in Youngstown into a stormwater drain at Lupo’s direction on nine nights between Oct. 1 and Nov. 12, 2012.
The information says Lupo ordered Goff to make the discharges after dark when nobody else was present.
“Actions like these threaten to turn America’s waterways into chemical dumping grounds. Today’s charge should help protect the Ohio River watershed by deterring other would-be violators,” said Randall Ashe, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s chief criminal law enforcer.
The Mahoning and Shenango rivers join at New Castle, Pa., to form the Beaver River, which flows into the Ohio River.
Hardrock, Lupo and Guesman, 35, of Cortland, were charged in a federal grand jury indictment with violating the Clean Water Act.
Guesman pleaded guilty and was sentenced last week by U.S. District Court Judge Donald C. Nugent to three years’ probation and 300 hours of community service, but no fine or restitution was imposed on him.
Guesman said he dumped the waste from the tanks at Lupo’s direction on 24 nights beginning Dec. 12, 2012.
Lupo, 63, of Springfield Township, has pleaded guilty and will be sentenced at 10 a.m. June 16.
Brad J. Beeson, the assistant U.S. attorney prosecuting the case, has called for Lupo to serve three years in prison.
A Jan. 31, 2013, discharge of brine, drilling mud and drill cuttings triggered the investigation of this case and a cleanup costing more than $1 million.
The penalty range for violating the Clean Water Act is probation to three years in prison, followed by a year of supervised release, and a fine up to $250,000.
The case against Hardrock still must be resolved by a guilty plea or a trial, Beeson said.