The former operator of Arco Recycling has been ordered by a judge to pay more than $30 million in restitutions and penalties for ignoring state environmental and disposal laws at the company’s Cleveland-based demolition debris dump.
George Michael Riley and his company Residential Commercial Industrial Services were involved in allowing more than 300,000 cubic yards of demolition debris dumped at the Noble Road site to pile up from 2014 and to early 2017, Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Shannon Gallagher ruled.
The judge wrote in her 27-page ruling that all the while Riley was “profiting and thwarting all regulatory enforcement.”
As reported by Cleveland.com, the judge also ordered Riley to pay back the state the $9.1 million the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) awarded to the county board of health to clean up the Arco Recycling site starting in 2017. In addition, the judge barred Riley and RCI from operating a dump or recycling facility in Ohio.
“Riley’s open recalcitrance and callous disregard for the public health and the environment weigh in favor of imposing the maximum civil penalty,” Gallagher wrote.
Lawyers from the Ohio Attorney General’s Office said at trial that Riley’s actions created a risk of toxins such as arsenic, lead and asbestos leeching into groundwater and exposed nearby residents to airborne pollutants.
Assistant Attorney General Pearl Chin added that regulators uncovered enough waste at the site to fill a football field 10 stories high when the state closed the site in January 2017. Later that October, part of the site caught fire.
While Riley held the site out as a recycling facility, regulators said the ratio of materials dumped on the site versus what owners sold off for reuse was low. To operate a landfill, Riley would have had to obtain a license and take the proper steps to prepare the land.
Riley did not take those steps, according to prosecutors.
The settlement also included agreements for Arco Recycling and 1705 Noble Road Properties LLC, with which Riley was also affiliated, to pay $2.7 million and $2.3 million civil penalties, respectively. The company also agreed to pay for the cost of the cleanup efforts, reports Cleveland.com.