Colorado environmental regulators have reopened an investigation into allegations of illegal waste- dumping at a Highlands Ranch sewage plant supervised by a state water-quality commissioner.
In recent weeks, officials with the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment have interviewed former workers and demanded thousands of records from the Centennial Water and Sanitation District, headed by Commissioner Paul Grundemann.
“The state is the lead agency and actively pursuing the case,” said Melanie Pallman, head of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Denver civil-enforcement office arm.
State officials, who previously contended they could find no evidence of wrongdoing at the facility, refused to comment. Grundemann did not return phone calls.
The new inquiry follows a February report in The Denver Post detailing how the facility’s management avoided punishment for what EPA agents described as “enormous” spills of wastewater in the spring of 2000. Several employees described to federal agents how a fire hose was used to circumvent the plant’s clogging problems, draining untreated waste down a hill toward a South Platte River tributary, according to records. And one manager admitted to playing a role.
In early 2004, the U.S. attorney’s office declined to take the case to trial, saying the lack of a witness to the waste directly hitting the creek surface – its banks were covered with vegetation – would have troubled a jury. But state regulators, who had the option of pursuing a civil-enforcement case based on evidence collected by the EPA, did not seek to review the documentation until after the newspaper report – a year after the criminal probe was closed.
Now, state investigators are not only scrutinizing the EPA documents but seeking to interview former plant operators, including Dennis Schum and Michael Convertino, who became EPA informants in 2001, Schum’s attorney said.
Both men have accused Grundemann in federal lawsuits of forcing them from their jobs in retaliation for supplying information to federal agents – an accusation Grundemann has denied in court papers.
The Convertino suit has been settled, with the district paying him $78,000. The Schum case could go to trial this year.
It is unclear whether Grundemann has been questioned as part of the new inquiry. State officials have given the Centennial sewage-plant management until May 31 to produce internal spill records and other documentation, said John Hendrick, general manager for Centennial.
“They’ve asked for boxes of stuff,” Hendrick said, adding that any clogging problems at the plant have been repaired. “We run a high-quality operation. We’re squeaky-clean.”
Former employees have painted a starkly different picture of operations, saying a culture that was indifferent to complaints was pervasive and that Grundemann and others misrepresented the size of spills in reports to the state.
David Miller, Schum’s attorney, said he is pleased that the state is taking a new look at the case. But he is disturbed that protective orders are still in place that shield many documents from public view.
“There are certain parts of the record in this case being kept secret that shouldn’t stay secret,” said Miller, referring to court-sanctioned agreements with the U.S. attorney’s office.
Water-quality experts and former regulators have questioned whether Grundemann’s role in state water politics – Gov. Bill Owens appointed him to the Water Quality Control Commission and the Water and Wastewater Facility Operators Certification Board – may have dissuaded state officials from pursuing an aggressive investigation. Officials have vehemently denied that, saying Grundemann’s state oversight role has never been a consideration and that he has not attempted to influence any inquiry.
Some believe the decision to finally aggressively investigate Centennial’s problems is a step toward dispelling perceptions about Grundemann’s influence.
“The state should go to all possible lengths to assure that there is no perceived conflict of interest,” said Myrna Poticha, a former water-quality commissioner.
Staff writer Miles Moffeit can be reached at 303-820-1415 or mmoffeit@denverpost.com.
