Oklahoma City Corporation Indicted for Clean Water Act Violation

Oklahoma City, Okla.--Amtech Corp., a manufacturer of oil field chemicals, and its co-owners were indicted on March 8 in U.S. District Court in Oklahoma City, Okla., for violating the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act and the Clean Water Act. The two co-owners Stephen Lane Adkins, President, and Joel Edwin Mayhan, Vice-President, along with Virginia Malson, owner of M&M Drum Co. all were indicted. The indictment alleges that waste chemicals from the manufacturing process, including solvents, were illegally stored, transported and disposed of between 1993 and 1997. The indictment states that drums of hazardous waste were delivered to M&M Drum Co. by Amtech Corp. where the contents of the drums were poured into the Oklahoma City sewer system. The drums of the hazardous waste also were dumped in a field in Asher, Okla., and were stored and buried in Osage County, Okla. Exposure to sufficient quantities of solvents can cause a variety of diseases of the internal organs. The case was investigated by EPA's Criminal Investigation Division and is being prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Oklahoma.SOURCE: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency