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MISSISSIPPI CORPORATION, CHAIRMAN, AND SHAREHOLDER COMPANIES INDICTED
Release Date: 02/03/2000
Contact Information:
FOR RELEASE: THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 2000
MISSISSIPPI CORPORATION, CHAIRMAN,
AND SHAREHOLDER COMPANIES INDICTED
AND SHAREHOLDER COMPANIES INDICTED
Tammy H. Etheridge, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Central Industries Inc., Central Industries Inc. and its five shareholder companies: B.C. Rogers Poultry Inc.; Choctaw Maids Farms Inc.; Lady Forest Farms Inc.; Marshall Durban Farms Inc.; and McCarty Farms Inc.; were each indicted on Jan. 20, in U.S. District Court for in Jackson, Miss., for conspiring to violating the Clean Water Act. Central Industries Inc., located in Forest, Miss., each year processes thousands of tons of entrails, blood, feathers and waste from chicken slaughterhouses owned by its shareholder companies. As a result, Central Industries Inc., produces hundreds of thousands of gallons of wastewater each day that contains pollutants including ammonia nitrogen, fecal coliform bacteria, oil, grease, suspended solids and rotting material that creates a high biological oxygen demand. The indictment alleges that Central Industries Inc., received excessive amounts of waste from chicken slaughter houses than it could process without exceeding its water discharge permit. It is further alleged that the indicted companies and Etheridge ignored warnings that the Central Industries Inc. wastewater treatment system was operating beyond capacity; that they also consistently failed to comply with permits, orders, and directives issued by the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality; and that Central Industries, Inc. would sometimes bypass the rendering plant by dumping truckloads of untreated chicken blood into a wastewater lagoon located at its facility. During a four-month period beginning in April 1995, Central Industries, Inc. allegedly violated its discharge permit more than 1,100 times by discharging un-permitted levels of pollutants into Shockaloo Creek, a tributary of the Pearl River that supplies drinking water for the city of Jackson. If convicted, the corporate defendants face a maximum fine of $500,000 on each count. Etheridge faces up to three years in prison and/or a fine up to $250,000 on each count, if convicted. The case was investigated by EPA’s Criminal Investigation Division, the FBI, and is being jointly prosecuted by the Environmental Crimes Section of the U.S. Department of Justice and by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Mississippi.
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