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AUTO SALVAGE COMPANY AND MANAGER SENTENCED
Release Date: 01/22/99
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FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, JANUARY 22, 1999
AUTO SALVAGE COMPANY AND MANAGER SENTENCED
Kempton Brothers Inc., an auto salvage firm operating in the Tampa area, and Robert B. Kempton, owner and President of Kempton Brothers were sentenced on Jan. 15, in U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida in Tampa for violating the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA). Kempton Brothers was ordered to pay a $150,000 fine and serve five years of probation for its conviction on two RCRA Counts. Robert Kempton, who previously pleaded guilty to one count of illegally disposing of a hazardous waste and one count of making a false statement to a law enforcement officer, was sentenced to one year in prison and was ordered to pay a $100,000 fine. Kempton Brothers was in the business of recovering and cleaning used automobile parts. In the process, solvents, lacquer thinner and waste automobile fluids such as antifreeze, oil, gasoline, transmission fluid and brake fluid were illegally flushed into a gravel-lined pit. At various times, the defendants excavated sludge containing hazardous waste from the pit and illegally disposed of it by placing it in automobiles destined for the scrap yard. Groundwater studies conducted by the Florida Department of Environmental Regulation indicate contamination of a well at the Kempton Brothers facility with benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene xylene and other chemicals. Ingestion of these substances can cause damage to the kidneys and other internal organs and benzene from gasoline contamination is a cause of cancer in humans. The case was investigated by the EPA’s Criminal Investigation Division with the assistance of the EPA’s National Enforcement Investigations Center, the FBI, the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Department and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection Division of Law Enforcement, and was prosecuted by the U.S. Department of Justice.
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