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PA CHEMICAL CORPORATION PRESIDENT AND EMPLOYEES INDICTED FOR WATER VIOLATIONS

Release Date: 07/03/97
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FOR RELEASE: THURSDAY, JULY 3, 1997

CHEMICAL CORPORATION PRESIDENT AND EMPLOYEES INDICTED FOR WATER VIOLATIONS

On June 27, CH2O Inc. of Olympia, Wash., the company’s founder and ex-president Thomas E. Iverson and the former plant manager James Vincent Bucco, were indicted in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington in Seattle. They were indicted on one count of conspiracy to violate the Clean Water Act (CWA) and four counts of violating the CWA by illegally discharging chemicals into a sewer. Jeffrey M. Wilsie, CH2O’s plant manager, was charged on June 25 with a CWA misdemeanor violation and Ronald T. Mickelson, the company’s production foreman, was charged on June 30 with a CWA felony violation. The defendants allegedly disposed of wash water containing chemical wastes from drums into a toilet that then flowed into the local publicly-owned treatment works (POTW). CH2O’s activities at the warehouse came to light in February 1995 after a worker at the POTW was overcome by chemical fumes. CH2O Inc. manufacturers water treatment chemicals, concentrated janitorial supplies and other chemical products. This indictment was the result of a cooperative effort by EPA’s Criminal Investigation Division, the city of Olympia, Washington State Police and the Washington State Department of Ecology.

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