Pool company owners found not guilty of dumping hazardous materials
The owners of a South Barrington pool construction and supply company smiled broadly as they exited a Rolling Meadows courtroom Tuesday after a judge found them not guilty of illegally dumping a rinse containing muriatic acid, a chemical used to clean pool filters.
“Thank God,” said Dale Overson, president of Barrington Pools Inc. the business he cofounded in 1973. Overson was charged along with vice-president Louise Donahue with the criminal disposal of hazardous waste, a Class 3 felony punishable by up to five years in prison.
“Justice was served,” said Louise Donahue. “God was on our side.”
Defense attorney Leigh Roadman described the prosecution of Donahue and Overson as an “overreaction” to an anonymous tip left on the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency website. Roadman and co-counsel Thomas Breen attributed the tip to former employees, one of whom left to start a competing business.
“(Overson and Donahue) are fine people who have run a great company that has a fine reputation,” Roadman said after Cook County Circuit Court Judge Thomas Fecarotta pronounced them not guilty. In announcing his finding, Fecarotta raised doubts about the quality of the investigation and the handling of the scene.
Based on a tip they received in March 2010, Illinois EPA investigators on July 9, 2010, inspected the company's site on Route 59, north of Interstate 90. Three days later, investigators returned to collect samples which indicated pH (acidity) levels of 1.2, 1.3 and 1.6. The law classifies anything below 2.0 as hazardous, prosecutors said. On Aug. 4, 2010, local, state and federal authorities executed a search warrant at the site under the direction of Mathew Siler, an agent with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Acknowledging that the rinse from the cleaning process contained hazardous material, Fecarotta questioned why none of the 20 to 30 individuals who helped execute the Aug. 4 search warrant took any samples that day.
“I believe the investigation fell woefully short,” said Fecarotta, pointing out that Siler knew that several references to a broken septic pump and buried trailers leaking chemicals were unfounded.
“I believe they (Overson and Donahue) were negligent, but not that they intentionally dumped hazardous waste (into a ditch as outlined in the complaint),” Fecarotta said.
To that end, he pointed to the limestone pit Overson dug decades ago to neutralize any chemicals contained in runoff from the filter cleaning. He also referenced signage detailing the proper handling and use of chemicals located in the maintenance building where the cleaning took place. The judge also stated he would have liked to have heard testimony from the employee who managed the filter cleaning on a daily basis and who left Barrington Pools to start his own company.
Finally, Fecarotta questioned the credibility of prosecution witness Siler, the EPA agent and former McHenry County prosecutor, saying “I am extremely dismayed at the testimony of Agent Siler.”
“To say he was evasive was being nice,” Fecarotta said.
As he left the courthouse Overson stated that a month after the investigation began, Barrington Pools received a permit to continue the cleaning process. Additionally, neither the ground nor the well tested positive for hazardous material, Overson said.