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North Carolina Businessman and Corporation Indicted

Release Date: 12/01/2004
Contact Information:


Contact: John Millett 202-564-7842 / millett.john@epa.gov

(12/01/04) All State Environmental Dredging Inc. (All State) and its president, Rudy J. Lanier of Sneads Ferry, N.C., were indicted on Nov. 17 in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia in Norfolk, Va., on counts of violating the Clean Water Act, making false statements and false claims. All State had a contract with the Army Corps of Engineers to perform dredging work on Tangier Island in the Chesapeake Bay. All State’s contract with the Army required the company to dredge Tangier’s Channel and turning basin and to deposit the dredged spoil at a beach replenishment site on the island’s southwest coast. The indictment alleges that in late 2000, Lanier directed All State employees to accelerate the dredging process by rerouting the discharge pipeline and discharging spoil into the waters of Tangier Sound, off the island’s east coast. The indictment also alleges that after army contracting personnel were alerted to the illegal discharges, Lanier made a series of false statements to them in an attempt to evade detection and to obtain full payment under the contract. Lanier also allegedly directed an employee to falsify forms concerning weather delays in an attempt to avoid penalties for missing the contract’s completion deadline. Improperly disposing of fill material in surface waters can harm fish and wildlife. The case is being investigated by the Army Criminal Investigative Division and the Washington, D.C., Office of EPA’s Criminal Investigation Division, with assistance from the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality’s Criminal Investigation Unit. It is being prosecuted by the U.S. attorney’s office for the Eastern District of Virginia, and the Regional Counsel’s Office for EPA Region 3.