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Wednesday, March 10, 2004
Environment - Buried Tanker Car Issue Resurfaces
Remember the "railroad tanker car full of hazardous waste" buried near Gary, reported here in the Indiana Law Blog last October? Per the Indianapolis Star story at the time (no longer available): "The owner of a recycling business buried a tanker containing flammable waste near the Gary/Chicago Airport and later threatened to kill someone he thought had tipped off environmental officials, authorities said."
Well, today U.S. EPA is reporting here in its weekly enforcement wrap-up:
Donald L. Vacendak of Hammond, Ind., was sentenced on Feb. 27 to serve 37 months in prison followed by three years supervised release, after being convicted of obstructing justice by knowingly threatening to kill a government informant. The informant had provided information alleging Vacendak violated the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act by disposing of an ignitable hazardous waste in a buried railroad tank car in Gary, Ind. Such allegations are investigated because if determined to be true, there could be serious potential fire and ground water contamination hazards. The case was investigated by the Chicago Area Office of EPA's Criminal Investigation Division; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms; the Hammond, Indiana Police Department; and the Indiana Department of Environmental Management with technical assistance provided by EPA's National Enforcement Investigations Center. The case was prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney's Office in Hammond.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on March 10, 2004 04:56 PM
Posted to Environmental Issues