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Second Man Sentenced in Michigan Waste Treatment Facility Case

Release Date: 04/01/2005
Contact Information:

Contact: Stacie Findon, 202-564-7338 / [email protected]

(04/01/05) Gazi George, former vice president of City Environmental Inc., was sentenced on March 16 in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan in Detroit, to serve 27 months in prison, pay a $60,000 fine and serve three years under court supervision after release. George had earlier pleaded guilty to violating the Clean Water Act and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. A codefendant, former Plant Manager Donald Roeser, was sentenced in December 2004 to serve 12 months in prison and pay a $60,000 fine. U.S. Liquids, a Texas company that formerly owned City Environmental, paid a $5.5 million fine in 2002. Between 1997 and 1999, the defendants discharged untreated and insufficiently treated waste into the Detroit sanitary sewer system, installed an illegal bypass pipe, and transported hazardous waste to a landfill not licensed to receive hazardous waste. Discharging untreated wastes into sewer systems can create a public health hazard and damage sewage treatment equipment. Improperly disposing of hazardous wastes in landfills can contaminate groundwater and have significant public health implications. The case was investigated by the Detroit Office of EPA’s Criminal Investigation Division and the FBI with the assistance of EPA’s National Enforcement Investigations Center. It was prosecuted by the Environmental Crimes Section of the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., and the U.S. attorney’s office in Detroit.