Health and Safety News

Florida Manufacturing Company Fined $1.5 Million For Illegal Toxic Waste Disposal That Led To Deaths Of Two Boys
Release Date: January 3, 2005

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- A Tampa, Florida manufacturing company today was fined a statutory maximum $1.5 million for the illegal
disposal of toxic wastes that led to the deaths of two nine-year-old boys.

Previously, the plant manager and shop foreman of the company, the William Recht Co., were sentenced to 27 months in prison for their role in the disposal of the waste.

The company does business as Durex Industries Inc. It makes rollers for the printing press industry. In June 1992, the two boys climbed into a dumpster outside the plant and were overcome by toxic fumes from toluene wastes, a cleaning solvent, which the company had been unlawfully disposing of in the dumpster.

On July 13, 1994, the company became the first corporate defendant to ever plead guilty to a charge of knowing endangerment under the Resource, Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), the federal law that regulates the handling and disposal of hazardous waste. The two individuals, William and Duane Whitman, were convicted on July 28 of illegal treatment, storage and disposal of a hazardous waste.

Today's sentence was imposed in U.S. District court in Tampa. In addition to the $1.5 million penalty, the company was placed on five years probation and ordered to develop an effective environmental compliance program.

The case was investigated jointly by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Environmental Protection Agency and was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Dennis I. Moore and Special Assistant U.S. Attorney W. Bruce Pasfield, U.S. Department of Justice, Environmental Crimes Section.

http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/Pre_96/January95/1.txt.html