Opinion ID: 739683
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Matamoras, Pennsylvania, Site

Text: 6 Charles Shay and his wife owned a parcel of land near Matamoras, Pennsylvania, on the Pennsylvania bank of the Delaware River, just across the river from Port Jervis, New York. The site is immediately south of Interstate 84, which crosses a bridge from Port Jervis to Matamoras. Prior to 1988, Shay had been using a portion of the land as a campground and boat-docking area. 7 In 1969, during the construction of I-84, the property's previous owner had allowed state highway contractors to excavate a large hole from the property. The hole became partially filled with tree stumps and other organic waste, but there remained a large depression on the property. In 1988, the Shays began construction of a restaurant on the property and needed to fill the depression as part of that project. With the help of a local contractor, Raymond Ryder, Shay arranged with a waste broker named Kelly Wall to bring clean fill to the site. 3 Instead of clean fill, however, Wall caused shredded demolition waste, municipal waste, construction debris, and other debris (C & D debris) to be hauled to and dumped at the site. 4 8 Apparently, Shay did not consider this to be entirely undesirable. In fact, at some point during this time, Shay's then attorney, Randolph Borden, requested that PADER consider issuing a permit to Shay to use his land as a site for the dumping of C & D debris. PADER responded in the negative, indicating that Shay's property was too close to residential areas and the Delaware River to serve as such a dump site. On October 19, 1988, and December 6, 1988, PADER officials inspected the Shay property and found the landfill material previously dumped by Kelly Wall (the Wall material) to be environmentally unacceptable. Wall thereafter stopped dumping and abandoned the project. 9 In January 1989, Donald Herzog, James Rogan and Frank Salerno met with Shay and Ryder and proposed to bring processed C & D to the site. 5 Herzog formed a corporation called Tri-State Land Development, Inc. (TSLD), which brought the materials to the site and supervised the work there. 10 On March 8, 1989, PADER issued an order and assessment of civil penalties, which cited the Shays for the unlawful dumping of the Kelly Wall waste and imposed a $20,000 civil penalty. On March 23, 1989, Herzog, Shay and others met with Pennsylvania regulatory authorities to discuss cleanup of the Matamoras site. Herzog proposed to remove the Wall material and replace it with better quality fill. He provided PADER with a list of safeguards to ensure that the Wall material would be properly removed and that clean fill would be dumped in its place. As no permit was required to dump clean fill, PADER officials told Herzog, Shay and Ryder that they were free to go forward at their own risk. 11 In fact, however, the evidence at trial showed that even before they met with PADER on March 23, Herzog and Shay had already opened the landfill and accepted C & D debris. Dump, or load, tickets admitted at trial showed that C & D debris was dumped at Matamoras as early as January and February 1989. The dumping apparently stepped up after the meeting with PADER, however, though not on the terms discussed with the officials. From March through July 1989, Herzog, Shay and others arranged for the disposal of vast quantities of untreated C & D debris at the landfill. The dumped materials were not segregated or processed in any way, and included substantial amounts of wood, metal and building fixtures. It appears that, during this period, Herzog, Shay and others sought to accept as much C & D debris as possible at the Matamoras site while eluding scrutiny by PADER, law enforcement and local residents. The dumping of C & D debris often took place at night, in the early morning hours, and on Saturdays, presumably in order to avoid PADER scrutiny. Moreover, rather than being removed entirely from the Matamoras site as promised, much of the Wall material was moved to a large pit on the Shay property while the remainder was taken down the road to another unauthorized location known as the St. Onge site. 12 In addition to misrepresenting their actions to PADER, the Appellants falsely represented to private waste haulers that they had a permit to operate the Matamoras landfill and to receive C & D debris. The receipt of such debris was, however, conducted in a suspicious manner. Waste haulers and garbage transfer station operators who used the landfill were asked to pay cash; Herzog offered cash discounts and refused to allow certain haulers onto the site unless they first paid in cash. Some of the cash and checks received were deposited by Herzog into a TSLD bank account, but much of the cash was not deposited and was never recorded on TSLD's books and records. 13 Although the Matamoras landfill operated for only six months, the proceeds of the illegal operation totaled approximately $3 million, of which Shay received a one-sixth cut. In addition, Herzog and his co-defendants paid approximately $500,000 in regular installments to the New York Luchese Crime Family, a fact which Herzog, Ryder and Maselli concealed as part of a conspiracy to defraud the Internal Revenue Service. Herzog's surreptitious payments to the Luchese Family, although independently documented by Herzog, were not recorded in TSLD's books and records. 14 In May 1989, the ground wells of neighboring residents on Rose Lane began to emit foul odors and brown fluids, and the water acquired a foul taste. After heavy rains, the wells would also emit a brown foam. A May 30, 1989, on-site PADER inspection revealed that defendants were dumping C & D debris and other materials for which a permit was required. The following day, PADER informed Herzog, Shay and Ryder that this waste was unacceptable. On June 7, 1989, PADER mailed the defendants a letter demanding the removal of the Wall material and notifying them that sampling of the debris being dumped at Matamoras would be undertaken. In response to complaints of bad odors coming from the landfill, PADER issued a cease and desist order in July 1989, ordering immediate halting of further dumping at the site. 15 After the cease and desist order was obtained, PADER employees performed tests on the well water of the residents of Rose Lane, whose wells were down-gradient from the Matamoras landfill. PADER found that the water samples contained elevated levels of heavy metals and other pollutants, which rendered the wells contaminated under federal water pollution standards. In October 1989, PADER declared the water unfit for human consumption. 16 Following issuance of the July cease and desist order, Herzog, Shay and others took a number of steps to give PADER the false impression that they had removed the Wall material from the Matamoras site. They dug large pits at the site, which they filled and then bulldozed. Herzog also created a series of false trucking manifests to reinforce the impression that the Wall material had been removed. Specifically, Herzog obtained blank manifests from transfer stations in New York, and caused them to be completed with false indications that the tainted materials had been removed from the Matamoras site. These false removal manifests were sent to PADER in October 1989. 17 By its terms, the July 1989 cease and desist order expired during the summer. In mid-September 1989, Herzog, Shay and others met to make plans to reopen the Matamoras landfill, and agreed on a plan. According to Jerry Dotey, the Government's trial witness, TSLD's lawyer, Borden, would propose to PADER that the already-dumped offending waste would be removed and that a clay liner would be installed at the landfill to protect the ground water. If PADER agreed to this remedial action, the defendants would reopen the landfill and proceed to accept as much C & D debris as possible before PADER discovered their actions. Herzog and the other defendants also agreed to refuse PADER personnel access to the property. 18 On September 15, 1989, and again on September 19, PADER informed the defendants that no new fill was to be accepted at the Matamoras landfill. Nevertheless, on September 19, trucks carrying debris started arriving at the Matamoras landfill. For the next two to three weeks, Herzog and Shay were present at the landfill regularly while nearly continuous dumping resumed. The site once again began to emit a foul odor and polluted liquid waste. 19 Residents of Rose Lane began to complain again of odors and well water contamination, as well as of noise at all hours of the night caused by the continuous deliveries of C & D debris to the site. PADER's orders to cease acceptance of debris were, however, ignored. A PADER inspector was denied entry to Shay's property on September 25 and September 26, 1989. FBI surveillance established that night-time dumping occurred on each night from September 25 though September 28, and that Herzog was present during this dumping. On October 6, 1989, the eve of PADER's obtaining an injunction from the Pike County Court, defendants finally ceased accepting debris at the site. 20 After the second closure of the Matamoras site, and continuing though January 1992, Herzog, Shay and their coconspirators made various efforts to re-open the Matamoras site. To this end, Herzog induced two environmental engineering firms to provide favorable reports concerning the Matamoras landfill. Engineers testified to advising the defendants of the impropriety of dumping C & D debris at the site, of the contamination that the prior dumping was causing, and of the high and ever-increasing costs of remedial measures. According to the Government, when an engineer retained by the defendants would recommend expensive remedial steps, the defendants would simply leave that engineer's bills unpaid and ignore the recommendations.