All News Releases By Date

FORMER LCP OFFICIAL SENTENCED

Release Date: 07/01/1999
Contact Information: Carl Terry, EPA Press and Media Relations, 404-562-8325

Today, Judge Anthony Alaimo, U.S. District Court Judge for the Southern District of Georgia, sentenced Randall W. Hansen, former Chief Operating Officer of LCP Chemicals- Georgia, to serve forty-six months in prison and pay a $20,000 fine. Hansen was convicted on January 15, 1999, of thirty-four counts of violating environmental laws which includes knowledge of the endangerment of workers at the LCP plant in Brunswick, Georgia.

Hansen was the last of seven defendants to be sentenced in this landmark environmental investigation and prosecution. Four defendants pled guilty before trial began in January. Three defendants, Christian A. Hansen, Randall W. Hansen, and Alfred R. Taylor, were convicted of multiple counts of polluting the environment. The sentences received by these three defendants are three of the longest sentences ever imposed in a case involving criminal violations of environmental laws. The combined sentences of the six individuals total twenty- one years and nine months. They are an important component of the EPA Criminal Investigation Division’s efforts to enforce the nation’s environmental laws and protect workers exposed to dangerous chemicals.

LCP manufactured chlor-alkali bleach, caustic soda, hydrogen gas and hydrochloric acid. In the process, the defendants caused mercury and chlorine to be released into Purvis Creek. Workers at the Brunswick plant were repeatedly exposed to imminent danger of death and serious bodily injury by working conditions which exposed them to possible chemical burns electrocution, and poisoning from inhalation of mercury vapors and from other contacts with mercury-contaminated and corrosive wastes. Cleanup at the LCP site has cost approximately $55 million so far, and additional cleanup of sediments, if feasible, could cost an additional $100 million.