Judge Thomas Harris of Ashtabula common pleas court ordered Richard Morrow, who owns RWC Properties and Circle M Oilfield Transportation, to pay $200,000 for polluting the environment by illegally burning and mishandling oil field waste, according to Farm and Dairy.
In 2017, the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency reported seeing Morrow burning waste in large storage tanks twice. Later inspections by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources noted large areas of soil stained by waste leaking from the tanks.
Despite repeated orders from the Ohio EPA and ODNR, Morrow didn’t address the violations. The Ohio Attorney General’s Office sued Morrow and his companies for unlawful transport, storage and open burning of oil field waste in 2018.
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