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PA THREE CHEMICAL COMPANY EMPLOYEES SENTENCED
Release Date: 04/18/97
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FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, APRIL 18, 1997
THREE CHEMICAL COMPANY EMPLOYEES SENTENCED
Benjamin Grafton of Ft.Walton Beach, Fla., Gary Boris of Hattiesburg, Miss., and Benny Joe Surratt of Biloxi, Miss., all former employees of Arizona Chemical Co. Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of International Paper Co., were sentenced for environmental crimes on April 14 and 15, in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi. Grafton previously pleaded guilty to violating the federal Clean Water Act (CWA) by tampering with a water monitoring method. He was sentenced to one year probation with six months of home confinement and a $20,000 fine. Boris previously pleaded guilty to one CWA count of tampering with a water monitoring method and one count of violating the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) for the illegal storage of hazardous waste. He was sentenced to a year and a day of imprisonment and a $10,000 fine. Surratt pleaded guilty to one CWA count of tampering with a water monitoring method. He was sentenced to one year probation with six months home confinement and a $20,000 fine. Arizona Chemical Co., operates two chemical manufacturing plants in southern Mississippi. The defendants illegally manipulated a wastewater treatment process by diluting the effluent and manipulating the flows to obtain results that falsely indicated the company was complying with discharge permit limits. In addition, Boris illegally stored hazardous waste and mischaracterized hazardous waste as "cleaning oil" to avoid detection. In September 1996, the corporation pleaded guilty to CWA and RCRA offenses and was sentenced to a $2.5 million criminal fine, ordered to pay $1.5 million in restitution to the state of Mississippi and placed on three years probation. The case was investigated by EPA's Criminal Investigation Division and the FBI .
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