Two former supervisors at a Nashville waste treatment plant were indicted after officials say they polluted Nashville’s sewer system.
Randall Ray Stark, of Texas, and Caleb Warren Randall, of Tennessee, are both charged with conspiracy to defraud the Environmental Protection Agency and to violate the Clean Water Act, according to a Sept. 12 U.S. Department of Justice release.
An unsealed grand jury indictment said the men directed Allwaste Onsite employees to bypass treatment processes and discharge untreated and partially treated wastewater into the Nashville sewer system in December 2022 and January 2023, according to the DOJ release.
The release said Stark and Randall tampered with and caused Onsite employees to tamper with sampling devices that Metro Nashville placed to monitor the company’s compliance with permits.
If convicted, the pair could face up to 17 years in prison and be subject to fines, restitution and post-release supervision.
Stark and Randall’s charges come in the wake of Tennessee company Allwaste Onsite pleading guilty Aug. 5 to violations of the Clean Water Act, the U.S. Department of Justice said in an August news release.
As part of the plea deal, Onsite Environmental will pay a $512,000 fine and serve three years of probation. While on probation, the company is required to properly treat industrial waste, according to the deal.
The facility in Nashville treated liquid non-hazardous industrial waste before discharging them into the sewer. The company was required to remove pollutants in the waste before discharging them.
But the company failed to remove the pollutants over weekslong periods twice, the release said. The news release states Onsite Environmental employees discharged untreated or partially untreated waste into the Metro sewer from Dec. 5-22, 2022, and from Jan. 4-17, 2023.
Sentencing for Stark and Randall is scheduled for Dec. 15.
Reach reporter Craig Shoup by email at cshoup@gannett.com and on X @Craig_Shoup. To support his work, sign up for a digital subscription to www.tennessean.com.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Ex Nashville employees indicted amid waste treatment plant conspiracy