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Idaho Man Sentenced in Paint Waste Case
Release Date: 09/30/2004
Contact Information:
Contact: John Millett 202-564-7842/ millett.john@epa.gov
(09/30/04) Dennis D. Ellis of Boise, Idaho, former director and corporation secretary for Ponderosa Paint Company in Boise, was sentenced on Sept. 16 to pay a $50,000 fine, pay an additional $40,000 in restitution for clean up costs incurred by the U.S. EPA, spend 30 days in home confinement and serve six months supervised release by the U.S. District Court for the District of Idaho in Boise. Ellis has pleaded guilty to a charge of being an accessory after-the-fact to transportation of hazardous waste without a manifest in violation of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. In January 2000, Ellis negotiated the sale of Ponderosa Paint to Kelly Moore Paints for $14 million. A condition of the sale was that Ellis would be responsible for disposing of approximately 20,000 gallons of waste oil-based paint that had accumulated at the Ponderosa facility between 1995 and 2000. Instead of paying a licensed hazardous waste disposal company approximately $150,000 to dispose of the wastes, Ellis offered individuals $1 per gallon to dispose of the waste paint. Some of the paint waste was illegally transported to private property in Wilder, Idaho, and burned in a pit. The case was investigated by the Portland Area Office of EPA's Criminal Investigation Division and the FBI with the assistance of the Idaho State Police, the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality, the Canyon County Sheriff's Office, the EPA Idaho Operations Office, and EPA's National Enforcement Investigations Center. It is being prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney's Office in Boise.
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