By: Lee Fehrenbacher//October 11, 2012//
Lee Fehrenbacher//October 11, 2012//
A Washington developer is going to prison for stormwater pollution.
On Wednesday, the U.S. District Court in Tacoma, Wash., sentenced 65-year-old Bryan Stowe, the president and co-owner of Stowe Construction, Inc. to six months in prison and fined him $750,000 for knowingly violating the conditions of a permit to control stormwater runoff at a business park project in Sumner, Wash. The violations resulted in significant environmental damage, including increased sedimentation in the White River and a neighboring wetlands restoration project, and resulted in two landslides that caused the closure of the West Valley Highway.
Tyler Amon, a special agent in charge of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Criminal Investigation Division in the Northwest, said in a statement that the EPA and the Washington Department of Ecology wanted the criminal case to send a message to developers that 鈥淪erious environmental crimes will be vigorously pursued.鈥
Stowe’s company reportedly falsified weekly site inspection reports to fool regulators. The felony violation of the Clean Water Act earned Stowe a $300,000 fine for knowingly violating the permit and a $350,000 criminal fine. He will also pay $100,000 to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation to fix environmental resources impacted by the illegal discharge.
Stowe obtained the permit in 2006, and his sentence was a result of actions taken from 2007 to 2011 at the Rainier Park of Industry project.