Atlantic Wire Pleads Guilty to Polluting the Branford River

The Atlantic Wire Company pleaded guilty Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Hartford to two criminal charges — violating the federal Clean Water Act and submitting false statements to the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection regarding pollution measures designed to protect the Branford River. As a result, hundreds of blue crabs perished in the fall of 2007.

The official who signed those false statements was not identified. Nora R. Dannehy, acting United States attorney for the District of Connecticut, said her office’s criminal inquiry is continuing. The case is considered a major development in criminal environmental enforcement.

During an hour-long hearing, U.S. District Court Judge Christopher F. Droney accepted the plea agreement which had been brokered by the U.S. Attorney’s office and Paul W. Shaw, a partner at Brown Rudnick LLP in Boston, Mass. Shaw, who represents Atlantic Wire, did not respond to a call seeking further information about the fines the bankrupt company may face.

Judge Droney will sentence the company on March 20. It faces a maximum $1 million in fines if convicted of both counts and five years probation. The company closed its doors after it filed for bankruptcy in August. It is not clear what impact probation would have on the company’s status at this point.

In an 11-page stipulation of guilt prepared and submitted to the court, Attorney Shaw wrote: ​“The defendant acknowledges that it is entering into this agreement and is pleading guilty freely and voluntarily because it is guilty.”

The company agreed to waive its right to be indicted and to plead guilty to a three- count information charging it with knowing violations of the federal Clean Water Act.

One of its most heinous acts against the Branford River occurred on Sept. 4, 2007.

Here is how Shaw described it: ​“On that date, an acid pipe ruptured and the wastewater at the facility dropped to a pH as low as 1.4 standard units, far below the permit minimum of 6 units. The wastewater remained below the permit limit for at least 2 hours and 55 minutes.

“Despite certain employees’ awareness of the extremely acidic pH of the water, certain of those employees, acting with their authority and scope of employment, allowed the continuing discharge of wastewater in violation of the permit, explaining that discharging the water to the Branford River while adding alkaline soda was the most effective way to return the volume of water to an acceptable pH range. However, as a result, the discharge to the Branford River continued for a considerable time while the pH was returning to the 6.0 level. The Company estimated that it discharged approximately 6,400 gallons of low pH wastewater on this date.” .
The criminal charges the company admits to are against the company itself and not against its chief officers. The law views a corporation as a legal ​“person” or entity that has standing to sue and be sued.

Atlantic Wire, one of Branford’s oldest companies, had manufactured industrial wire for the last 102 years. The company’s demise came roughly eight months after Attorney General Richard Blumenthal sued Atlantic Wire on behalf of DEP Commissioner Gina McCarthy. He won a court injunction in March, 2008 which forced Atlantic Wire to stop discharging any waste water into the Branford River until it installed equipment to automatically halt outflows that exceed permitted levels.

At the time Blumenthal was blunt about the company’s activities. ​“Atlantic Wire’s environmental record is reprehensible and repugnant — repeatedly dumping poison into the Branford River,” he declared.

Blumenthal said an illegal toxic discharge in September 2007 killed hundreds of blue crabs in the Branford Harbor. The Attorney General’s case, which is expected to be settled soon, was civil in nature. The federal case goes further. Its charges are criminal in nature. It was investigated by the Criminal Investigation Division of the Environmental Protection Agency.

Acting U.S. Attorney Dannehy said the investigation began ​“when an alert crab fisherman notified the Connecticut DEP that he had encountered a significant number of dead crabs in the vicinity of the discharge pipe of Atlantic Wire’s facility.

“The federal government is committed to working with our state partners to protect the environment and public health, and this Office will prosecute companies and employees who cut corners, violate environmental permits, knowingly pollute waterways and submit false reports to the EPA and DEP.”

Scott Thayer served as executive vice-president of Atlantic Wire during the 2007 period. He left his post in May, 2008. We asked for his comments on the criminal charges. He has not yet replied.

He is also a member of the Representative Town Meeting (RTM). He served on the town’s legislative body during the time the Attorney General says the Branford River was severely polluted.

From its public statement it is clear that federal investigators interviewed a number of the company’s employees, but it is not known if Thayer is one of them. Investigators learned, for example, that at the end of May 2007, Atlantic Wire’s environmental manager retired, leaving no one to operate the wastewater treatment system.

“Atlantic Wire made no preparations to hire another employee with environmental operations experience or training and made little effort to train a replacement for the departing environmental manager while he was still at the plant. Instead, in the wake of the departure, Atlantic Wire assigned the responsibilities of the environmental manager to a current employee, a recent college graduate, who was already fully employed as the product metallurgist at the plant and, who, by his own admission, had no idea how to deal with environmental operations or the relevant reporting requirements. The Company provided this individual with little training in wastewater treatment and reporting.”

Under state law, Discharge Monitoring Reports (DMRs) required Atlantic Wire ​“to certify that the submitted documents were prepared under a system designed to assure that qualified personnel properly gathered and evaluated the information submitted and that the signing authorized official had made inquiry to ensure the truth, accuracy and completeness of the submitted material.” No arrests have yet been made with regard to false statements submitted to DEP.

The federal investigators also found a memorandum dated July 26, 2007 in which ​“an employee with background in the treatment system confirmed that necessary actions and procedures required by the system for wastewater treatment were not being carried out. The cleaning houses were being shut down twice a day, every other day, or a total of three to four times a week.”

The main water pollution problems occurred in the warm months of 2007. ​“The Company was aware of the issues of dirty water and the causes, and that the operations could be improved by substantial increased use of the filter press and removal of sludge from the holding tank. Throughout the summer of 2007, a consultant repeatedly identified the failure to remove sludge as a major source of Atlantic Wire’s problems, calling such failures the ​“kind of ridiculous foolishness” that had been going on for years. Despite these repeated warnings and knowing the potential consequences, employees acting within their authority and scope of employment failed to operate and maintain the system properly by limiting or delaying these rudimentary fixes to the system. As a foreseeable result, dirty water was discharged to the Branford River on a repeated basis.

Under the plea agreement, The company admits it acted knowingly when it submitted false discharge monitoring report statements. Who actually represented the company in the signing of these false documents is not stated.

Meanwhile, the federal investigation continues. The plea agreement states that the company will cooperate with the government in its investigation of possible ​“violations of federal and state law and in any trial or other proceeding arising out of the investigation of the conduct set forth in the Stipulation of Offense Conduct.”

Specifically this means the company had to agree to provide access to its original documents and records. It also had to agree to make ​“reasonable efforts to have defendant’s directors, officers, and employees make themselves available for interviews by law enforcement agents and for attendance at legal and judicial proceedings, including grand jury sessions, trials, and other court hearings.”

The Connecticut Fund for the Environment was the first group to bring legal action against the company and four others in September, 2007, soon after the blue crab kill became evident. Residents report that the blue crab has yet to return to the Branford River this year.###