A former plant manager and a supervisor of a Nashville, Tennessee, facility pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee to conspiring to bypass waste pretreatment systems and discharge the waste into the Nashville sewer system, and to tampering with a monitoring device at the facility.
David Ray Stark, the former Plant Manager at Allwaste Onsite LLC, doing business as Onsite Environmental (Onsite Environmental) pleaded guilty yesterday. Caleb Warren Randall, a former plant supervisor at Onsite Environmental, pleaded guilty on April 22. According to court filings, both men admitted to bypassing treatment processes at the facility and discharging untreated wastes into the Nashville sewer system in late 2022 and early 2023. Stark and Randall also admitted that they directed plant employees to tamper with a sampling device that Nashville’s Department of Water and Sewerage Services placed at the facility to monitor discharges into the sewer system in January 2023.
“The defendants repeatedly and intentionally violated the Clean Water Act by discharging untreated wastes into the Nashville sewer system,” said Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Adam Gustafson of the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division (ENRD). “This prosecution sends the message that those who purposely undermine federal environmental laws and endanger public infrastructure will face felony prosecution for their illegal conduct.”
“Illegal discharges that endanger local sewer infrastructure will not be tolerated,” said U.S. Attorney Braden H. Boucek for the Middle District of Tennessee. “I want to commend the collaborative efforts of the Metro Nashville government, EPA’s Criminal Investigation Division, and EPA’s Office of Inspector General on the investigation of the illegal conduct at Onsite Environmental and for bringing these defendants to justice.”
“The defendant did more than simply violate the company’s CWA permit. Whenever his company took more industrial waste and landfill leachate than it could treat, the defendant had the waste dumped straight into Nashville’s sewer system and had employees tamper with the city’s monitoring equipment to avoid detection. The waste clogged and damaged the city’s water infrastructure, posing a health risk to the community,” said Assistant Administrator Jeffrey A. Hall of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)’s Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance. “EPA will pursue companies that completely abdicate their responsibility to protect municipal infrastructure and downstream waterways, and criminal penalties are particularly appropriate for schemes to actively conceal and misrepresent violations of federal law.”
According to court documents and statements made in court, the tampering by Stark, Randall, and Onsite Environmental involved removing the hose of the sampling device from the facility’s discharge flume and placing it into a bucket filled with cleaner water that was not representative of the actual waste discharged to the sewer. Stark and Randall face a maximum sentence of five years in prison and $250,000 in fines. Stark’s sentencing hearing is scheduled for Aug. 19 and Randall’s sentencing hearing is scheduled for Aug. 4.
Metro Nashville’s Sampling Device Placed at Onsite Environmental’ s Discharge Flume.
Last year, Onsite Environmental was sentenced to pay a $512,000 fine after pleading guilty for discharging waste into the Nashville sewer system. Nashville incurred over $80,000 in additional sewer maintenance and repair activities traced to the illicit bypassing at Onsite Environmental. Nashville recouped these maintenance and repair costs, as well as an additional $299,576 in unpaid surcharges, from Onsite Environmental in a separate action.
The Clean Water Act established the federal pretreatment program — which is delegated to states and municipalities — to provide a permit system to protect sanitary sewer infrastructure from industrial discharges which may harm sewer systems and wastewater treatment plants. Under an approved Clean Water Act pretreatment program, municipalities can require the reduction of harmful pollutants in wastewater from industrial discharges prior to the wastewater being discharged to the sanitary sewer system. These pretreatment requirements protect the local sewer systems — which are generally designed to process domestic sanitary sewage — from industrial wastes which can harm sewer pipes and the treatment processes carried out at wastewater treatment plants.
EPA’s Criminal Investigation Division and Office of Inspector General investigated the case, with assistance from the Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County.
Senior Trial Attorney Matthew Morris and Trial Attorney Rachel Roberts of ENRD’s Environmental Crimes Section and Assistant U.S. Attorneys Ahmed Safeeullah and Stephanie Toussaint for the Middle District of Tennessee are prosecuting the case.
