BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) — A Buffalo-area industrial plant and its environmental control manager have been convicted of violating federal clean air laws and other environmental regulations.
The U.S. Attorney's Office says a federal jury Thursday found the Tonawanda Coke Corp. guilty of 11 counts of violating the Clean Air Act and three counts of violating the Resource Conservation and Recovery act.
Prosecutors say the jury also convicted the plant's environmental control manager, 65-year-old Mark Kamholz of West Seneca, on 15 counts, most of them for violating clean air laws.
A 20-count indictment unsealed in August 2010 charged the company and Kamholz with allowing the release of toxic gases from the plant along the Niagara River north of Buffalo from 2005 through 2009 and operating the plant during that time without required pollution-controlling baffles.