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UTAH COMPANY, FORMER PRESIDENT SENTENCED IN ASBESTOS CASE
Release Date: 10/19/2001
Contact Information:
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, OCT. 19, 2001
UTAH COMPANY, FORMER PRESIDENT SENTENCED IN ASBESTOS CASE
Luke C. Hester 202-564-7818 / hester.luke@epa.gov
Brent Sumsion, former President of Valley Asphalt Inc., of Spanish Fork, Utah, and Valley Asphalt were sentenced on Oct. 2 for violating the Clean Air Act by illegally exposing company employees to asbestos containing material (ACM). Valley Asphalt was ordered to pay a $300,000 fine and serve two years probation. Sumison was ordered to pay a $25,000 fine and serve one year probation. Valley Asphalt sells construction sand, gravel and asphalt and operates a mining pit near Elberta, Utah. The ACM was contained in insulation removed at the company’s Spanish Fork facility. It was buried at the Elberta site. After test samples of the buried insulation indicated that it contained asbestos, Sumsion directed company employees to dig up and remove the ACM and to ship it via company-owned trucks back to the Spanish Fork facility. The removal was done without following required federal standards and employees were thus exposed to asbestos, a substance which can cause lung cancer, a lung disease called “asbestosis,” and mesothelioma, which is a cancer of the chest and abdominal cavities. This plea is the result of a joint investigation by EPA’s Criminal Investigation Division, Utah’s Attorney General and Department of Air Quality with the assistance of the Utah County Health Department and EPA’s National Enforcement Investigations Center. The case was prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s office in Salt Lake City.
R-207 ###
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