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TWO FORMER MANAGERS OF GEORGIA CHEMICAL AND PLASTICS PLANT SENTENCED

Release Date: 04/29/99
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FOR RELEASE: THURSDAY, APRIL 29, 1999
TWO FORMER MANAGERS OF GEORGIA CHEMICAL AND PLASTICS PLANT SENTENCED

Douglas Brent Hanson of St. Simons Island, Ga., former Environmental Manager at the L.C.P. Chemicals and Plastics Inc. (LCP), manufacturing facility in Brunswick, Ga, and James C. Dunn of Rome, Ga., former Assistant Production Manager were sentenced on April 26 in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Georgia in Brunswick. After a guilty plea, Hanson was sentenced to 18 months in prison, a $5,000 fine and one year of probation for violating the Comprehensive Environmental Response Compensation and Liability Act and the Endangered Species Act. In an earlier plea, Hanson admitted that on Sept. 22, 1993, he failed to immediately inform the National Response Center of the release of over 1,000 pounds of sodium hypochlorite bleach into an outfall at the LCP facility. The outfall emptied into a marsh adjacent to the facility and into Purvis Creek. Releases of reportable amounts of sodium hypochlorite must be immediately communicated to the National Response Center so that an emergency cleanup can begin. Failure to report a release can endanger the health and lives of people, wildlife, fish and other aquatic organisms. Dunn was sentenced to nine months in prison and one year probation. The case was investigated by EPA's Criminal Investigation Division, EPA's National Enforcement Investigations Center, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Georgia Environmental Protection Department, and was prosecuted by the U.S. Department of Justice.


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