By Matthew Monks
Empire Transit Mix Inc., at 430 Maspeth Ave., agreed to pay a $300,000 fine last Thursday for discharging a milky plume of concrete debris and mixer runoff into the 3 1/2 mile creek, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced during a news conference in Manhattan.The EPA began investigating the ready mix concrete supply company in 2001, when an official on a routine inspection saw gray liquid spewing from the facility on the banks of the creek. The EPA and the Federal Bureau of Investigations observed seven other discharges that summer, according to documents filed last month in federal court for the Eastern District, which covers Queens and Brooklyn.Environmental advocate Riverkeeper, which patrols local waterways looking for pollution, joined the investigation in 2002, pointing out an illegal discharge pipe near the company.Riverkeeper investigator Basil Seggos said the company was spewing “thousands” of gallons of waste water a day into the creek. He saw plumes several times.”This one stuck out because it was constant,” Seggos said. “It stuck out every single day.”Empire Transit Mix pleaded guilty to violating the Rivers and Harbors Act of 1899, which prohibits the dumping of “any refuse matter of any kind” into U.S. waterways without a permit, the EPA said.The company's lawyer, Scott Jason Pashman, did not return a call for comment.The EPA will split the $300,000 with Riverkeeper, which will use the money for pollution prevention and education programs.City Councilman David Yassky (D-Brooklyn) described the guilty plea as an important victory in the effort to restore Newtown Creek.”This is a big step because environmental victories have been like this – one step at a time,” Yassky said. “This is not a dumping ground. This is a waterway and it can be rectified.”Yassky is a co-plaintiff with Riverkeeper in a lawsuit against ExxonMobil charging the oil giant with failing to sop up a 17-million-gallon oil spill near Newtown Creek that has been seeping beneath Brooklyn and Queens for more than 50 years. The lawsuit, filed last May in Brooklyn federal court, is in suspended litigation until June, Seggos said.Empire Transit Mix is the second concrete company targeted by federal investigators in the polluting of Newtown Creek. In January, a Brooklyn grand jury indicted Maspeth's Quality Concrete of New York on 22 felony counts of spewing a “cloudy discharge” into the creek from its facility at 46-73 Metropolitan Ave. That case is pending.Reach reporter Matthew Monks by e-mail at news@timesledger.com or by phone at 718-229-0300, ext. 156.
