43
Attorney General sues Ben Lupo
YOUNGSTOWN
Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine has sued Ben Lupo, two of his companies and three of his employees for more than $25,000 over the dumping of oil-field waste into a Mahoning River tributary in late 2012 and early 2013.
The civil lawsuit was filed late last week in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court against Lupo, who is serving a 28-month prison term after pleading guilty to violating the federal Clean Water Act; D&L Energy Inc.; Hardrock Excavating LLC; and Lupo’s employees, Michael Guesman, Mark A. Goff and David Jenkins.
In the federal case, Guesman, of Cortland, and Goff, of Newton Falls, pleaded guilty to violating the Clean Water Act and were put on three years’ probation after saying they repeatedly dumped the waste at Lupo’s direction.
In addition to his prison sentence, Lupo was fined $25,000.
Hardrock also pleaded guilty to violating the federal Clean Water Act and was fined $75,000.
That company also was required to make a community service payment of $25,000 to be split equally between Friends of the Mahoning River and the Midwest Environmental Enforcement Association, based in St. Charles, Ill.
Jenkins, of Warren, was not a defendant in the federal criminal case.
The suit seeks to recover financial penalties under state law against the defendants, who it alleges “discharged and caused the discharge of brine, oil-based drilling muds and other oil-field wastes and wastewater” without a permit into a stormwater drain that flowed into an unnamed Mahoning River tributary.
Lupo directed Hardrock employees to dump those liquid wastes “from one or more storage tanks on D&L’s Salt Springs Road property into the storm sewer,” the suit says.
The Ohio Department of Natural Resources revoked Hardrock’s brine-hauling certificate.
The lawsuit was not specific as to total civil penalties being sought, but it said state environmental protection laws were violated at least 25 times, with potential penalties up to $10,000 per offense being authorized by state law.
Kate Hanson, an attorney general’s spokeswoman, wrote in an email to The Vindicator “it will be up to the court to determine the total number of violations that occurred among the multiple defendants and the appropriate monetary relief.”
In addition to the financial penalties, the complaint, assigned to Judge John M. Durkin, seeks a court order prohibiting any further violations of state environmental protection laws.
Lupo, 65, of Springfield Township, is at the Federal Medical Center Devens in Ayer, Mass., from which he is scheduled to be released Oct. 11.
The oily mess from the waste dumping necessitated a $3.1 million cleanup paid for by D&L and lasting more than a month.