Environmental Matters in the Commonwealth of Kentucky

On June 22, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that Gerald Lakota, a former employee of Fujicolor Processing, pleaded guilty today to willfully concealing and covering up a material fact in reports required to be filed under the Clean Water Act.  According to a plea agreement, while an employee at Fujicolor’s film developing facility in Terrell, Texas, Lakota was responsible for environmental compliance at the plant, which included preparing and submitting the plant’s wastewater Discharge Monitoring Reports. In order to ensure compliance with the plant’s monthly Discharge Monitoring Reports, Lakota selectively screened or “cherry-picked” samples of the facility’s wastewater effluent. Samples that were out of compliance with the facility’s pre-treatment permit for silver were not reported on the Discharge Monitoring Reports as required by the facility’s permit. The film finishing process at the facility generated a significant amount of process wastewater that contained silver.

According to plea agreement, by “cherry-picking” the samples, Mr. Lakota falsely presented the analysis of the final “good” samples as representative of the facility’s discharge, when he knew this was not true, and created the false impression that the facility was meeting its effluent limits required by the discharge permit.   Lakota was charged in the Northern District of Texas and pleaded guilty in U.S District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee. He faces up to five years in prison, a $250,000 fine, and five years of supervised release.

In a related matter, after disclosing the findings of an internal investigation to federal and state officials, Fujicolor pleaded guilty on Sept. 6, 2007, and agreed to pay a $200,000 criminal fine for negligently violating its pretreatment permit at its photo-processing facility in Terrell.