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VIRGINIA PUBLIC SERVICE AUTHORITY AND TWO FORMER EMPLOYEES SENTENCED
Release Date: 09/23/99
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THURSDAY, SEPT. 23, 1999
VIRGINIA PUBLIC SERVICE AUTHORITY AND TWO
FORMER EMPLOYEES SENTENCED
FORMER EMPLOYEES SENTENCED
The Henry County Public Service Authority (Henry County), Thomas Clark, a former Sewage Treatment Division manager, and Mark L. Nolen, a former supervisor, were sentenced on Sept. 14, in U.S. District Court in Roanoke for violating the Clean Water Act. Henry County was ordered to pay a fine of $1 million, $900,000 of which will be used in community projects in the county. Clark was sentenced to two months home confinement and a $30,000 fine. Nolen was sentenced to two months home confinement and a $5,000 fine. The violations arose from the improper operation and maintenance of the Upper Smith Wastewater Treatment Plant and the failure to accurately monitor and report the pollutant content of discharges from the Upper Smith facility and from the Piedmont Estates Sewage Treatment Lagoon. Failure to properly maintain the Upper Smith facility resulted in the periodic discharge of sewage solids into the Smith River between January 1992 and November 1995. The discharge of sewage solids can introduce sufficient quantities of bacteria into surface waters to make them unsafe for recreational uses and can harm aquatic life. The case was investigated by EPA’s Criminal Investigation Division with the assistance of EPA’s National Enforcement Investigations Center, the FBI, Virginia Department of Environmental Quality, and was prosecuted by the U.S. Department of Justice.
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