for waste management are going to realize that this all applies to them," she says. Other actions against federal man agers are indeed likely, according to Keith A. Onsdorff, director of EPA's Office of Criminal Enforce ment Counsel. "We are checking out leads in a number of cases," Onsdorff says, declining to elabo rate. "EPA believes there is a need for more reliance on criminal juris prudence to enforce the law," he says. "I think the word is getting out to federal facilities that non compliance with these laws can have very drastic and unfortunate consequences." According to Barrett, the Aber deen case was brought to the gov ernment's attention in 1986 by an informant from the facility. "The case was then turned over to the Federal Bureau of Investigation be cause it is a federal facility and the state did not have any jurisdiction," she says. The three chemical engi neers were indicted last June and the trial began in early January. "The trial took six and a half weeks," Barrett says, "and the jury was out for 13 hours" before announcing the guilty decision. The case focused on two areas within the Edgewood section of the proving grounds—a pilot plant that was used to test chemical weapons projects for the Army and an older building called the old pilot plant, where waste apparently was being stored. Between 1983 and 1986, the indictment says that the men stored, treated, and disposed of hazardous chemicals in violation of the law, even after being warned by their superiors that they should clean up the area. The complaint says that waste storage containers were un labeled, deteriorated, and broken. Chemicals cited in the court papers as being improperly stored include picric acid, hydrazine, and ethyl ether. The three defendants were charged under RCRA with four counts of illegally storing and disposing of waste. Each count carries a maxi mum sentence of five years and a $250,000 fine. There was also one count of illegally discharging pol lutants into a stream. At the conclu sion of the trial, Dee was found
guilty on one count and Lentz and Gepp guilty on three counts each. The jury was hung on the other charges, and, although the men could be retried, prosecutor Barrett says that that is unlikely. One of the hung-jury counts was for ille gally discharging acids into a creek causing a large number of fish to die, with the contamination flow ing to Chesapeake Bay. Barrett de clined to speculate on what sen tences might be given to the men. David Hanson
Antibody raised against inert hapten . . .
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