A citizen's tip to EPA in 2006 has resulted in the federal guilty plea of a former city official of Lake Ozark, Missouri, who admitted failing to report the discharge of raw sewage into the Lake of the Ozarks.
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Download NowThe individual waived his right to a grand jury and pleaded guilty to one felony count of failing to report the discharge of pollutants into a lake, in an appearance before a U.S. Magistrate Judge in Jefferson City, Missouri.
As Lake Ozark's public works director, the man was responsible for overseeing the city's wastewater treatment facility and reporting sewage bypasses. Lake Ozark co-owns and operates the Lake of the Ozarks Regional Waste Water Treatment Facility with the City of Osage Beach, Missouri.
The plea to the federal criminal charge is the first in the nation to result from a tip forwarded to EPA through the Agency's "Report an Environmental Violation" website. Since the site was launched in January 2006, it has received thousands of tips about potential environmental violations.
The city of Lake Ozark has a history of overflows or bypass events from its wastewater treatment facility's lift stations into the Lake of the Ozarks. Citizen request forms maintained by the city document numerous incidents of lift station sewage bypasses that were never reported to the Missouri Department of Natural Resources (DNR). The city has routinely failed to notify DNR when the bypasses occurred, as its permit requires.
On September 11, 2007, DNR staff observed that a lift station was experiencing a bypass, resulting in a discharge of 10,000 to 15,000 gallons of raw sewage into the lake. DNR staff noted that the sewage caused a dark plume in the water at the Lake of the Ozarks. DNR notified the city of the bypass, and the city responded and stopped the flow, but conducted no cleanup and provided no written notification of the bypass.
On September 13, 2007, DNR staff visited the site, and no clean up had been started. DNR contacted the city official and requested a cleanup of the area. The bypass was never reported to DNR as required by the city's permit. A sample analysis of water collected from the Lake of the Ozarks showed extremely elevated levels of ammonia nitrogen and fecal coliform exceeding the criteria for whole body contact recreation.
"Lake of the Ozarks is one of the largest and most popular recreational lakes in the Midwest," said John Wood, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Missouri. "Under the Clean Water Act, we have a duty to prevent this natural resource from being polluted and to protect the health and safety of the public, including recreational users."
Under federal statutes, the man could be subject to a sentence of up to 3 years in federal prison without parole, plus a fine up to $250,000. A sentencing hearing will be scheduled after the completion of a presentence investigation by the U.S. Probation Office.