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PA FORMER STATE LEG. SENTENCED IN FIRST W.V. WETLANDS PROSEC.

Release Date: 06/14/96
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PA FORMER STATE LEG. SENTENCED IN FIRST W.V. WETLANDS PROSEC.

FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, JUNE 14, 1996

FORMER STATE LEGISLATOR SENTENCED IN FIRST WEST VIRGINIA WETLANDS PROSECUTION

On June 10, James D. Brackenrich, a professional engineer and former West Virginia state Senator, was sentenced in Beckley, W.Va., for his criminal conviction on one count of negligently filling wetlands without a Clean Water Act permit. He was sentenced to one-month imprisonment, five months of home confinement, a $25,000 fine and one year of probation. Additionally, he must submit for EPA's approval a wetlands restoration plan that must be completed within 18 months. During his tenure in the West Virginia Senate, Brackenrich chaired the committee which oversees environmental and natural resource legislation. Brackenrich, now employed by the West Virginia Department of Transportation, admitted that in December 1992 he used bulldozers to dump dredged and landfill material in wetlands without a required permit from the Army Corps of Engineers. The wetlands were on property owned by a family trust. The harm to the wetlands occurred during the construction of a 10-acre pond which he and his father had begun in 1988. The wetlands are part of the Meadow River complex in southern West Virginia, the state's second largest wetlands area. While the actual charge concerns work done in 1992, Brackenrich has stipulated as part of his plea agreement that he and his nowdeceased father also discharged dredged and landfill material into wetlands in 1988 without obtaining a permit. This case was investigated by EPA's Criminal Investigation Division and the FBI in Charleston, W.Va., with technical support from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Natural Resources Conservation Service.

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