The operator of an Aurora printing business and a Denver man who bought a semi-trailer from him have been indicted for allegedly violating Colorado’s hazardous-waste disposal laws.
Maurice Rockney Weiss, 69, who operated Accupress Printing Co., and Richard Wilmer, 66, are accused of using a roll-off Dumpster to illegally dispose of hazardous materials.
The indictment alleged that beginning in January 1999, Weiss stored hazardous wastes produced by his business inside a cargo trailer without having obtained the necessary permit from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.
The indictment alleged that in March 2006, Weiss sold the trailer to Wilmer, who moved it to hisresidence in Denver, according to the indictment.
The grand jury alleged that when the trailer was delivered to Wilmer, it was full of print-shop waste. Wilmer has maintained that he was told by Weiss that the trailer contained only a small amount of printing ink.
Many of the items in the trailer were hazardous wastes and contained warning signs as to their hazardous nature, according to the grand jury.
Eventually Wilmer was warned that he was improperly storing the materials on his property. At that point, according to the grand jury, Wilmer transferred the waste from the trailer to a structure on his property for storage, again without the proper permit.
Subsequently, said the grand jury, Wilmer disposed of the hazardous wastes in a roll-off dumpster, again without a permit.
According to the indictment, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency investigators went to Wilmer’s property and found the hazardous wastes — which had the chemical characteristics of toxicity, ignitability, flammability and combustibility — in late 2009 and in February.
The EPA officials believed this to be “an emergency circumstance” which threatened to harm the environment and the health and safety of people in the vicinity.
The waste was cleaned up by the EPA.
Howard Pankratz: 303-954-1939 or hpankratz@denverpost.com
