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WEST VIRGINIA COMPANY AND THREE ASSOCIATES SENTENCED
Release Date: 07/15/99
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FOR RELEASE: THURSDAY, JULY 15, 1999
WEST VIRGINIA COMPANY AND THREE ASSOCIATES SENTENCED
Three individuals and their company were sentenced for Clean Water Act violations in West Virginia on July 6 in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia in Charleston, W.Va. Donald Hoffman, Rodney Hoffman and Curtis Hoffman, all of Prosperity, W.Va. were sentenced to prison; Donald Hoffman to one year, Curtis Hoffman to 15 months and Rodney Hoffman to 11 months. Hoffman Metal Inc., facility which concentrated on auto parts plating, was fined $15,000, ordered to publish a notice of its conviction in a trade magazine, and sentenced five years probation. As part of its business, the company generated industrial waste water contaminated with acids and heavy metals including nickel and chromium. Between January 1997 and June 1999, that contaminated waste water was illegally discharged into sewers leading to the waste water treatment plant of the City of Beckley, W.Va. The nickel and chromium, if ingested in sufficient quantities, are toxic and a risk to people and wildlife, and also can cause damage to the treatment plant equipment and destruction of bacteria critical to proper sewage treatment. The case was investigated by EPA’s Criminal Investigation Division, the FBI, and the state Department of Environmental Protection, and was prosecuted by the U.S. Department of Justice.
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