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Iowa Company Owner Sentenced for Illegal Waste Discharge
Release Date: 09/17/2003
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(09/17/03) Norman Kent Walen, owner of Barrett Plating Inc., Des Moines, Iowa, was sentenced on Sept. 12, to spend 30 days in a federal correctional facility, serve eight months of home confinement and serve 12 months of probation for violating the Clean Water Act by discharging untreated plating wastes with high concentrations of zinc and low pH into the Des Moines sewer system during a three month period in 2002. He was also ordered to pay the Des Moines Metropolitan Waste Water Recovery Authority $27,913.37 and pay a $5,000 fine. Walen’s company discharged the waste into the sewers because it could not afford to pay for legal disposal of the waste. The illegal discharge caused over $27,000 damage to the Des Moines treatment plant. The case was investigated by EPA’s Criminal Investigation Division, the Iowa Attorney General’s Office, the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation, the Des Moines Metropolitan Waste Water Recovery Authority and the Iowa Department of Natural Resources. The case was prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Des Moines.
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