A New Jersey firm faces penalties after over 150 fish died in a Connecticut brook due to pollution from their construction work
The company, National Water Main Cleaning Company, is owned by Carylon Corporation from Chicago. They decided to skip the whole indictment process and just plead guilty in front of a judge. Apparently, they dumped some bad stuff into Cuff Brook while working on a culvert pipe in Cheshire.
So, what happened? Well, during their work in July 2019, they discharged uncured geopolymer mortar into the brook, which killed a bunch of fish and contaminated the water. Not cool, right?
As part of their plea deal, if the court agrees, they’ll be on federal probation for three years. Plus, they’ll have to cough up $500,000 in penalties and another $500,000 for projects to help the local ecosystem.
They were actually hired by Cheshire to fix a decaying culvert pipe, but they didn’t follow the rules. They were supposed to keep things dry and prevent any leaks, but they went ahead and sprayed the mortar anyway, even when it was raining.
A local resident noticed dead fish and weird-looking water, which led to an investigation. Turns out, the company knew their environmental controls were lacking but didn’t fix them. They even tried to blame one employee for the mess, but it was clear he wasn’t trained properly.
The investigation showed that the company didn’t have a solid environmental training program, which is pretty concerning since they work with public waterways. They were more focused on getting the job done quickly than on following environmental laws.
U.S. Attorney Vanessa Roberts Avery made it clear that businesses in Connecticut need to take environmental laws seriously. Ignoring them can lead to serious consequences. Sentencing is set for February 27, so we’ll see what happens next.
The whole case was looked into by the EPA’s Criminal Investigation Division, with help from state agencies.
