Environmental violators get jail time

COLUMBUS — The Environmental Enforcement Section of Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost’s office recently logged a pair of court victories, securing jail time for two environmental polluters in separate cases — one in southeast Ohio and the other in northeast Ohio.

Southeast Ohio. The first case involved Benjamin L. Altier, 66, of Corning, and the company he owns. He pleaded guilty to theft, a fifth-degree felony, and to improperly storing or disposing of brine, an unclassified misdemeanor. Brine is a waste byproduct consisting of water, oil and salts that is brought to the surface during the extraction of oil and gas.

Perry County Common Pleas Court Judge Tina Boyer sentenced Altier to 30 days in jail, three years of community control, $5,129.16 in restitution to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources and 50 hours of community service.

Additionally, Altier’s company, Altier Brothers Inc., was ordered to pay $5,000 in fines, $10,000 in restitution to Rural Action for the remediation of Sunday Creek, and was placed under one year of community control. The company must remove all brine and storage containers from its Corning property within 90 days. Altier’s company drills wells and is also a registered brine hauler and owner of oil and gas wells in the state.

Altier fabricated wastewater disposal tickets, then submitted the fraudulent tickets to ODNR, so that he was reimbursed for disposal fees that he did not pay. Instead of properly disposing of the wastewater, which he collected during the plugging of multiple orphan wells, Altier dumped some of it on land and improperly stored the rest.

The Altier investigation was conducted by Environmental Enforcement Unit of the attorney general’s Bureau of Criminal Investigation and prosecuted by the Criminal Prosecution Unit of the AG’s Environmental

The second case involved Joseph Senk, a 65-year-old resident of Northfield Village. Senk was found guilty of open dumping of solid wastes and illegal transportation of scrap tires, both unclassified felonies.

Summit County Common Pleas Court Judge Alison McCarty sentenced Senk to 90 days in jail and two years of community control and imposed a $10,000 fine.

Senk picked up scrap tires from various businesses in the greater Cleveland area using false exemptions under Ohio law. He then hauled the scrap tires to his property, where the tire treads were cut into large pieces.

Subsequently, the tires were dumped at an unlicensed scrap tire disposal facility and in a vacant lot in Northfield. Some of the scrap tires were even dumped in a small stream, where flooding carried them 300 feet downstream.

The Senk investigation was a collaborative effort between BCI’s Environmental Enforcement Unit and the Special Investigations Unit of the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency. The case was prosecuted by the Criminal Prosecution Unit of the Environmental Enforcement Section.

H2Ohio invests in Mentor Marsh, water infrastructure

COLUMBUS — Ohio Gov. Mike

DeWine and Ohio EPA Director

Anne M. Vogel announced $2.8 million in H2Ohio grants for 10 projects that will improve water quality in Ohio.

Projects receiving funding include the Mentor Marsh: Mentor Marsh. H2Ohio will provide $500,000 to support the Cleveland Museum of Natural History’s Mentor Marsh Coastal Restoration Project. The grant will be used to monitor and remove invasive species and grow native plants that will improve the overall health and quality of the wetland.

This grant builds on DeWine’s commitment to restoring the marsh, which was destroyed by salt pollution several decades ago. In 2013, while serving as Ohio’s attorney general, Governor DeWine filed a lawsuit against the entity responsible for the damage. As a result, the 801-acre wetland has largely been remediated and can even serve as a healthy nursery for fish species such as northern pike, fry and yellow perch fingerlings.

H2Ohio will provide approximately $2.1 million to four com-