Illegal dumping case costly for Columbia business

A Columbia business recently discovered that dumping waste without government approval comes at a price.

Earlier this year, state and federal agencies launched an investigation of Big Red Box LLC after receiving reports waste material was being piled behind the business along Pineview Road southeast of town.

Now, state regulators have fined the company $12,000 for illicit dumping, and federal authorities are continuing to probe possible wetlands destruction. If the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers finds that wetlands were destroyed without a permit, Big Red Box could be fined thousands more dollars to offset the loss.

“We thought we were doing something that wasn’t that big of a deal,” Big Red Box co-owner Coley Brown Jr. said, noting the fine “is painful.”

While the Big Red Box case didn’t include a large amount of property – no more than an acre – it highlights the importance of getting proper approvals from environmental regulators. In most cases, people need permits to dump waste material or fill wetlands.

Statewide in recent years, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the state Department of Health and Environmental Control have looked into hundreds of possible wetlands and dumping violations. For instance, during the past five years, the Corps has investigated about 550 alleged violations in South Carolina of the federal Clean Water Act, which governs wetlands, the agency said.

But the Corps of Engineers’ Brice McKoy, who acknowledged his agency doesn’t find out about every violation, said some of the problems people run into with regulators could be avoided if they would check with government agencies before discharging material onto property.

“Our biggest challenge we have in South Carolina is the educational component,” said McKoy, whose agency is investigating Big Red Box. “People just don’t always know.”

When someone seeks a permit, it allows the public and government agencies a chance to review proposals that could damage the environment. Federal and state agencies ultimately determine whether the project can be approved as planned or if it must be changed to lower the environmental impact. In some cases, agencies will deny permits.

McKoy declined to discuss details of the Big Red Box case. He said the case is an ongoing investigation. Company officials said they were not dumping household garbage, only dirt and rocks

DHEC spokeswoman Cassandra Harris agreed Big Red Box could have avoided the state solid waste fine if it had applied for a permit and met the requirements.

Big Red Box, co-founded by childhood friends Brown and Chris Dorsey in 2005, rents dumpsters and hauls refuse. The company employes about three dozen people.

Environmental threats

Illegal dumps can sometimes contain an array of hazards to the public or the environment, including materials that can be toxic to people and wildlife. Wetlands control flooding, filter and cleanse polluted storm water and provide wildlife habitat for a variety of species.

“Water resources are important to South Carolina and we need to do what we can to protect them,” McKoy said. “Wetlands are some of the most biodiverse lands in the U.S. And these small headwater streams are extremely important.”

McKoy said when property owners unknowingly dump in a wetland, dam a creek or fill a stream without permission, they are subject to enforcement actions. Often, if a property owner agrees to fix the problem, the Corps won’t press the matter.

But the Corps embarks on formal investigations when the violations are severe, last a long time or are committed by people the agency believes know better, such as big companies and established businesses.

Nick Kremydas, who heads the S.C. Realtors organization, agreed people don’t always know the rules. He said the government sometimes goes too far in busting people for environmental violations, such as wetlands filling.

“If it is a real wetland, yeah ... you call and check,” Kremydas said. “But common sense has been taken out of the equation sometimes.”

Most wetlands’ cases, including those involving work without permits, are civil actions that involve fines. But sometimes criminal investigators get involved.

One of the biggest wetlands destruction cases in South Carolina during the past 15 years occurred in northeast Columbia. A federal court hit Crossings Development LLC with a $1.1 million criminal fine in 2005 for damaging about 45 acres of wetlands without a permit.

Although the company had been told that wetlands existed on the property in early 2003, it began clearing the land later that year without seeking the required permit, according to the U.S. Attorney’s office. Unauthorized activities included grading and filling low-lying areas, ditching and side-casting soil in wetlands and redirecting creeks and streams, federal prosecutors said.

As compensation, a court ordered developers to restore much of the wetlands and fix the damage they had caused. The wetlands dispute delayed the project.

Pineview case

The Big Red Box case, while notable, isn’t on the scale of many major investigations, McKoy said.

Today the spot where the disposal occurred is a flat, skinned off dirt area behind the parking lot at Big Red Box. The site is surrounded by forest and is not far from a creek that flows through the developing industrial corridor.

Brown and Dorsey said that while their company didn’t realize it was doing anything that required a permit, they want to put the environmental case behind them. Dorsey called the dumping by Big Red Box an “honest mistake’’ that did not involve the disposal of hazardous substances, but instead included dirt and rock.

Dorsey, Brown and McKoy said they are working on a “resolution agreement’’ over the federal wetlands issues. They could not say when the case would be finalized.

DHEC officials resolved their case with the $12,000 fine in April and announced the sanctions earlier this month in a report to the agency’s board. Big Red Box agreed to the enforcement order after meeting with agency officials.

“They came out for a couple of little information gathering trips, then we sat down and talked with them,’’ Brown said of DHEC’s investigators. “We had the right decision-makers in the room and we all worked it out.’’

According to a DHEC enforcement order, Big Red Box was dumping concrete and other construction debris in the spongy area behind its main office along Pineview Road, a thoroughfare connecting Shop Road with U.S. 378.

DHEC’s Harris said the company might have to dig up and remove the material it dumped on the land, depending on the outcome of the Corps’ investigation. If the Corps allows the material to remain, the material must be covered with 2 feet of clean soil and grass planted on top, she said in an email.

The Department of Health and Environmental Control learned about the discharges in January, then notified the Corps of concerns that “landfilling activity had taken place in a wetland,’’ according to the department’s enforcement order against Big Red Box.

Company officials told DHEC they were holding broken concrete at the site temporarily, the order said. The plan was later to crush and recycle the concrete, the order said, quoting a company official.

The agency’s order said a company official knew that “landfilling activity had taken place at the site.’’ A low-lying area had been filled with broken concrete and “covered with soil,’’ the DHEC order said. A department inspector then told the company it must remove and properly dispose of the material.

Brown said his company was putting out dirt and material known as “clean fill,’’ which comes from construction projects. Included in that is concrete, he said.

“It is basically dirt and rock, like when a building gets built and they need to raise the grade,’’ he said. “It’s not trash. It’s where somebody was digging a hole. So it’s just dirt. That’s what we were doing.’’

This story was originally published August 29, 2015 at 9:26 PM with the headline "Illegal dumping case costly for Columbia business."