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Raymond Williams, owner of U.S. Technology Corporation, hires a company called Hydromex to recycle spent blast media into blocks at a facility in Mississippi. The powder came from Williams’ clients, who would use his abrasive products to strip paint off of vehicles and equipment, leaving behind a powder contaminated with toxic heavy metals.
Mississippi regulators discover Hydromex wasn’t recycling the material properly. The company was creating subpar blocks and burying the material to hide it.
The photo shows a ditch that was created when the material was dug up in 2012.
Williams offers to recycle the material so his clients don’t foot the bill and his contracts remain intact. He and the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) strike a deal, offering him an exemption to some permitting requirements in exchange for recycling the material within two years.
Williams finishes recycling the above-ground material — a few years behind schedule. During that process, he and Mississippi regulators discovered there was more material underground than they had thought.
Williams and MDEQ amend their original order, allowing Williams to recover and recycle the below-ground material into concrete blocks. They agree to a deadline of two years.
Williams and the Mississppi Department of Transportation (MDOT) agree to use the recycled powder as road base in an upcoming project. MDEQ amends the agreement, striking Williams’ ability to recycle the material into concrete blocks and replacing it with the roadbase provision.
The funding for the MDOT project falls through. Williams asks MDEQ if he can move the material to another site until the state has funding. It says no.
Williams trucks the material to a Berger, Missouri warehouse owned by the family of Daryl Duncan, his former employee. There, they say they plan to recycle the material into railroad ties.
After learning about the material, the Missouri Department of Natural Resources tells Williams to stop trucking material, which they view as non-recyclable hazardous waste. They begin investigating the site.
The federal government indicts Raymond Williams, Daryl Duncan and his wife, Penny, on charges of conspiracy to transport hazardous waste without a permit.
Williams and the Duncans plead guilty. Williams agrees to pay $1.5 million for the cleanup of the Berger site. The Duncans’ plea agreements are not public.
The EPA cleans up the Berger site under the Superfund program, removing 13 million pounds of drums and sacks filled with spent blast media.
The EPA announces it has completed receiving money for the cleanup from U.S. Tech’s customers, including Boeing, Lockheed Martin and the Department of Defense.