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As part of a plea deal with federal prosecutors, Eagle Recycling has agreed to pay a criminal fine of $500,000, to implement an environmental compliance plan at its North Bergen facility, and to pay restitution that could include cleanup costs at the dump site — a farmer’s property in Frankfort, N.Y.
Lieze Associates, which does business as Eagle Recycling of New Jersey, pleaded guilty today in U.S. District Court in Utica, N.Y., to conspiring to violate the Clean Water Act and to defraud the government — a felony.
Its representatives admitted that Eagle Recycling and other co-conspirators engaged in a multi-year scheme to illegally dump 8,100 tons of pulverized construction and demolition debris that was processed in North Bergen, then taken to Frankfort.
According to court documents, they concealed the crime by fabricating a New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) permit, forging the name of a DEC official on it.
Once DEC and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) learned of the illegal dumping, company representatives admitted, they began what federal prosecutors described as “a systematic pattern of document concealment, alteration and destruction including, but not limited to, destroying documents during the execution of a federal search warrant, secreting documents responsive to grand jury subpoenas, falsifying certifications submitted to the Grand Jury, and falsifying and submitting environmental sampling to the EPA.”
“This investigation underscores the extent that environmental polluters will go to avoid New York and federal environmental laws,” said New York State Department of Environmental Conservation Commissioner Joe Martens.
The five-year probe “highlights the complexity of the crime and propensity of the criminal actors to cross state lines to help cover their actions,” Martens added.
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