W?os Document 1-1 Filed 08/22/11 Page 10f9 lm? SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF hr 1r nm A nt?mhi?'f? fin! Incl" T?n'n my Ir? DEC 2 0 2006 SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF MISSISSIPPI J. NOBLIN. CLERK DEW WESTERN DIVISION CLV- It - Sous 1 Fax UNITED STATES OF AMERICA v. CRIMINAL NODENNIE E. PRIDEMORE 42 U.S.C. 6928(d)(2)(A) 18 U.S.C. 1001 The Grand Jury Charges: COUNT A. I. In or about 1994, defendant DENNIE E. PRIDEMORE established a corporation in Nevada named Hydromex, Inc., of which he was president. Throughout most of the next decade, defendant DENNIE E. PRIDEMORE sought investors for Hydromex, representing that he and his company possessed technologies capable of converting a broad variety of wastes into useful and marketable products. 2. In August 2000, defendant DENNIE E. PRIDEMORE, on behalf of Hydromex, signed an agreement with a company in Ohio to recycle its hazardous waste, to use its waste as a raw material in the manufacture of new, marketable products. Speci?cally, defendant DENNIE E. PRIDEMORE agreed to accept spent abrasive waste containing the toxic heavy metals lead, cadmium, and chromium resulting from the removal of paint from aircraft. In that contract, defendant DENNIE E. PRIDEMORE agreed to recycle the hazardous waste, stating that ?the abrasive be used in its entirety as an ingredient in the manufacture of a product for sale, and that the material will not or disposed of, and that the product produced W8 Document 1-1 Filed 08/22/11 PageZof9 waste and Hydromex was also to pro?t from the sale of the products it made, though there was no speci?cation as to what products Hydromex would manufacture from the hazardous waste it was to recycle. 3. In December 2000, defendant DENNIE E. PRIDEMORE, signed a lease for thirteen and a half acres of land in Yazoo City, Mississippi, for use as a site on which Hydromex would receive and recycle hazardous waste (?the Hydromex site?). 4. Starting in 2000 and continuing to the end of 2002, defendant DENNIE E. PRIDEMORE accepted, at the Hydromex site, the shipment of millions of pounds of hazardous waste containing the toxic metals lead, cadmium, and chromium. 5. Throughout his management of Hydromex, defendant DENNIE E. PRIDEMORE consistently represented to regulatory of?cials that Hydromex was properly complying with the exemption from hazardous waste laws by producing useful, non-toxic, and marketable products from the toxic metal contaminated waste it was receiving and was recycling at least 75% of the hazardous waste every calendar year. Defendant DENNIE E. PRIDEMORE claimed that Hydromex was, therefore, exempt under federal and state laws from the requirements that would otherwise apply to the storage, treatment, and disposal of hazardous waste. 6. Between 2000 and the end of 2002, defendant DENNIE E. PRIDEMORE authorized Hydromex employees to mix tons of abrasive waste containing toxic metals with cement and to place the mixture into rectangular molds to form blocks. Defendant DENNIE E. PRIDEMORE represented to regulatory of?cials that these blocks manufactured from hazardous waste were -2- W8 Document 1-1 Filed 08/22/11 PageBofg waste were used to create the blocks with relatively little cement or other adhesive or binder, the blocks easily disintegrated and leached out fluids when it rained. The blocks did not have the compression strength the defendant claimed and could not bear suf?cient weight for any structural use in buildings. In spite of the defendant?s assertions to the contrary, over the approximately two and a half years of Hydromex?s operation and the manufacture of hundreds of blocks out of hazardous waste, Hydromex never sold a single block. 7. Between 2000 and the end of 2002, defendant DENNIE E. PRIDEMORE instructed Hydromex employees to excavate trenches on the Hydromex site and to dispose of abrasive waste contaminated with toxic metals into those trenches, sometimes mixed with cement and sometimes not; sometimes he ordered employees to bury drums of waste in the bottom of the trenches. The excavated trenches ?lled with waste were then capped with concrete, and described by the defendant as concrete ?pads." Defendant DENNIE E. PRIDEMORE falsely represented to regulatory of?cials that the waste he buried in those trenches was not hazardous waste and that the pads constituted a useful product. Laws Re la the Stor and Dis sal of Hazar Waste 8. The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, Title 42, United States Code, (U.S.C.) Sections 690] (RCRA) regulates the generation, storage, transportation, treatment, and disposal of hazardous waste. RCRA is implemented in the State of Mississippi by the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality through a federally authorized hazardous waste management program established under the Miss. Code Ann. Section l7~l7~l etsgq, (Rev. 2003) and the Mississippi Hazardous Waste Management Regulations. -3- Document 1-1 Filed 08/22/11 Page 11V IIULWUVUD Federal Regulations (CFR), Part 261, and under parallel Mississippi laws and regulations. Under those regulations a solid waste may be a regulated as hazardous waste if it exhibits a characteristic that makes it dangerous. Under 40 CFR 261 and 26] .24, a solid waste contaminated with a listed heavy metal at or above speci?ed concentrations is determined to be hazardous waste because it is poisonous and toxic. The following are listed heavy metals and their concentration limits: Cadmium: milligram per liter (mg/L) Chromium: 5 mg/L Lead: 5 trig/L 10. A hazardous waste is exempt from RCRA and considered a raw material if it is recycled in a manner consistent with 40 CPR 261.1 and 261.2: if it is used as an ingredient in an industrial process to make a product and if at least 75% of the material is recycled or sent off site for recycling within each calendar year. If a spent hazardous material is not recycled as provided by federal and state regulations, it is not a raw material but a hazardous waste and must be transported, stored, treated, and disposed of according to federal and state hazardous waste laws. 11. It is a violation of RCRA, 42 U.S.C. 6928(d)(2)(A), for any person knowingly to treat, store, or dispose of any hazardous waste without a permit issued under federal law or under authorized state law. 12. Between December 20, 2001 and January 2003, in Yazoo County, in the Western Division of the Southern District of Mississippi and elsewhere, defendant DENNIE E. PRIDEMORE knowingly caused millions of pounds of spent abrasives contaminated with the -4- Document 1-1 Filed 08/22/11 PageSofg bags at the Hydromex site, in the Southern District of Mississippi. In so doing, and in having failed to comply with the recycling exemption under federal and state law, defendant DENNIE E. PRIDEMORE knowingly caused hazardous waste to be stored at a facility that did not have a permit to store hazardous waste, in violation of Section 6928(d)(2)(A), Title 42, United States Code. COUNT 2 13. Paragraphs 1 through 1] as set forth in Count 1 are herein realleged and incorporated as though set forth in full. 14. Between December 20, 2001 and January 2003, in Yazoo County, in the Western Division of the Southern District of Mississippi and elsewhere, defendant DENNIE E. PRIDEMORE knowingly caused millions of pounds of spent abrasives contaminated with the toxic heavy metals lead, cadmium, and chromium, hazardous waste, to be disposed of on the Hydromex site, in the Southern District of Mississippi, by mixing the hazardous waste with cement to form blocks that were never sold or removed from the site but remained and deteriorated on the land of the Hydromex site. Defendant DENNIE E. PRIDEMORE manufactured these blocks on the pretext that they were useful, marketable products when, in fact, they were not. In so doing and in having failed to comply with the recycling exemption under federal and state law, defendant DENNIE E. PRIDEMORE knowingly caused hazardous waste to be disposed of at a facility that did not have a permit to dispose of hazardous waste, in violation of Section 6928(d)(2)(A), Title 42, United States Code. Document 1-1 Filed 08/22/11 Page6of9 ?3 1 15. Paragraphs 1 through 11 as set forth in count 1 are herein realleged and incorporated as though set forth in full. 16. Between December 20, 2001 and January 2003, in Yazoo County, in the Western Division of the Southern District of Mississippi and elsewhere, defendant DENNIE E. PRIDEMORE knowingly caused millions of pounds of Spent abrasives contaminated with the toxic heavy metals lead, cadmium, and chromitun, hazardous waste, to be disposed of on the Hydromex site, in the Southern District of Mississippi, by burying it in trenches capped with concrete, while falsely claiming that it was not hazardous waste and asserting that the conversion of waste into concrete pads increased the value of the property. In so doing and in having failed to comply with the recycling exemption under federal and state law, defendant DENNIE E. PRIDEMORE knowingly caused hazardous waste to be disposed of at a facility that did not have a permit to diSpose of hazardous waste, in violation of Section 6928(d)(2)(A), Title 42, United States Code. 1-1 Filed 08/22/11 Page 7 of 9 1111? 1! vvwa. a I 17. Paragraphs 1 through 11 as set forth in Count 1 are herein realleged and incorporated as though set forth in full. 18. During the spring and summer of 2002, in Yazoo County, in the Western Division of - the Southern District of Mississippi and elsewhere, defendant DENNIE E. PRIDEMORE knowingly and without a permit to do so, disposed of hazardous waste at the Hydromex site, speci?cally, by burying drums of spent abrasives contaminated with the toxic heavy metals lead, cadmium, and chromium in trenches he had excavated on the Hydromex site, in violation of Section 6928(d)(2)(A), Title 42, United States Code. COUNT C. Law Prohibiting False Statements 19. It is a violation of 18 U.S.C. 100] for any person knowingly and willfully to make any materially false, ?ctitious, or fraudulent statement in any matter within the jurisdiction of the executive branch of the United States government. I). False Statement Alleged 20. Paragraphs 1 through 11 and paragraphs 14, 16, and 18 as set forth in Counts l, 2, 3, and 4 are herein realleged and incorporated as though set forth in full. 21. On or about May 29, 2002, in Hinds County, in the Jackson Division of the Southern District of Mississippi and elsewhere, during a meeting with of?cials from the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality, defendant DENNIE E. PRIDEMORE claimed that he was properly and legally recycling hazardous waste received at the Hydromex site and was, therefore, in compliance with the exemption from hazardous waste regulation. Speci?cally, .7- Case Document 1-1 Filed 08/22/11 Page 8 of 9 Company had ordered hundreds of blocks from Hydromex when defendant DENNIE E. PRIDEMORE well knew that there was no such company, that no such order had been received, and that no such sale or order had been made. In stating that the Holloway Construction Company had ordered from Hydromex hundreds of blocks made from recycled hazardous waste when he knew this not to be true, defendant DENNIE E. PRIDEMORE knowingly and willfully made a materially false statement to regulatory officials regarding a matter within the jurisdiction of the executive branch of the United States government, Speci?cally, the United States Environmental Protection Agency and the United States Department of Defense, in violation of Section 1001, Title 18, United States Code. COUNT 6 22. Paragraphs ?1 through 1] and paragraphs 14, 16, and 18 as set forth in Counts 1, 2, 3, and 4 are herein realleged and incorporated as though set forth in full. 23. On or about November 7, 2002, in Yazoo County, in the Western Division of the Southern District of Mississippi and elsewhere, in responding to an inquiry from an agent of the United States Department of Defense Inspector General's Of?ce as to whether Hydromex was properly recycling into construction blocks hazardous material from the United States Air Force, defendant DENNIE E. PRIDEMORE wrote and mailed to a federal agent, ?In early 2001 we signed an agreement with a man named Tim Holloway of Holloway Construction to supply him with 1,400 of these blocks,? when defendant DENNIE E. PRIDEMORE well knew that there was no such company, that no such order had been received, no such agreement had been signed, and that no such sale had been made. In stating that Tim Holloway of the Holloway Construction -3- Case Document 1-1 Filed 08/22/11 Page 9 of 9 when he knew this not to be true, defendant DENNIE E. PRIDEMORE knowingly and willfully made a materially false statement to regulatory officials regarding a matter within the jurisdiction of the executive branch of the United States government, speci?cally, the United States Environmental Protection Agency and the United States Department of Defense, in violation of Section 1001,_Title 18, United States Code. MAW DUNN LAMPTON United States Attorney A TRUE BILL: 5/ Signature b?orepeyon ot the Urano