Environmental Fraud

January 31, 2022

Signal Peak Energy LLC (“Signal”) was fined $1 million and sentenced to three years of probation for violating environmental and worker safety regulations at Signal Peak Mine near Roundup, MN. According to the government, Signal habitually violated mandatory health and safety standards in the Mine Safety and Health Act during the mine’s operation. These violations included both environmental safety and worker safety standards. The violations occurred with the full knowledge, direction and participation of the mine’s most senior management during that period, including the president and CEO, the vice president of surface operations, the vice president of underground operations and the safety manager. USAO MN

January 10, 2022

Following his guilty plea on charges related to the filing of false tax returns claiming nonexistent fuel tax credits, Michael Dexter Little was ordered to forfeit $12.3 million and sentenced to 19.5 years in prison.  Little and his fellow fraudsters filed false tax returns in their own names and in the names of identity theft victims, and laundered the proceeds via real estate and other assets. USAO MDFL

December 9, 2021

Monsanto Company has agreed to plead guilty to charges that it used a glufosinate ammonium-based pesticide, sold as Forfeit 280, on corn fields in Hawaii, and then allowed workers to enter the fields during a six-day restricted-entry interval after the product was applied.  Monsanto will pay $12 million and undertake specified environmental compliance programs.  The government further alleged that Monsanto’s actions violated a 2019 Deferred Prosecution Agreement regarding Monsanto’s unlawful spraying of a banned pesticide, methyl parathion, the active ingredient in Penncap-M, on research crops at one of its facilities on Maui. USAO CD Cal

October 13, 2021

West Shore Pipe Line Co. and Buckeye Pipe Line Co., the owner and operator, respectively, of a crude oil pipeline located near Lockport, Illinois, will pay a $1.2 million civil penalty and $7.2 million in damages to resolve federal claims arising from a 2010 breach in the pipeline that discharged 1,800 barrels of oil into a protected wetland.  DOJ

September 23, 2021

Shipping company Diana Wilhelmsen Management Limited was ordered to pay $2 million following its admissions that it violated the Act to Prevent Pollution from Ships.  DWM admitted that its vessel, M/V Protefs, unlawfully discharged oily bilge water and knowingly kept a false oil record book.  DOJ; USAO ED LA

August 6, 2021

Chandra Yarlagadda, who owned and operated biodiesel supplier Alpha Bioenergy LLC, was sentenced to two and a half years in prison and ordered to pay restitution of $3.3 million following his guilty plea to income tax evasion charges.  Yarlagadda, who reported income and expenses associated with Alpha Bioenergy on Schedules C attached to his personal income tax returns, admitted that over the course of three years he reported that the company incurred expenses totaling more than $14.2 million for the purchase and retirement of Renewable Identification Numbers (RINs) used by the EPA, when, in fact, he had incurred only $80,000 in RIN expenses during those years.  Without the inflated deduction claims, Yarlagadda would have owed an additional $2.3 million in federal income taxes.  DOJ

August 6, 2021

Alaska commercial fisherman James Aaron Stevens was ordered to pay a $1 million fine and sentenced to six months in prison following his guilty plea on charges under the Lacy Act related to the false reporting of halibut and sablefish catch by his vessels the F/V Alaskan Star and F/V Southern Seas.  Over four seasons, Stevens falsified documents including individual fishing quota (IFQ) reports, state fish tickets, and fishing logbooks, to falsely claim that he harvested fish in locations and regulatory areas where he did not fish and omit areas where he actually fished. USAO AK

August 5, 2021

Pipeline company Summit Midstream Partners LLC, Meadowlark Midstream Company LLC, and Summit Operating Services Company LLC, have agreed to pay $35 million in fines and penalties to settle criminal and civil cases arising from the discharge of 29 million gallons of “produced water” – a waste product of hydraulic fracturing – from Summit’s pipeline near Williston, North Dakota, over the course of nearly five months in 2014-2015.  As part of the settlement, Summit admitted that it operated the pipeline without a reliable leak detection system and made incomplete and misleading reports to federal and state authorities about the spill.  DOJ; EPA; December, 2021 DOJ Release