The president of Kenrich Petrochemicals Inc. in Bayonne, N.J., has been ordered to teach a course in environmental protection as part of a first-ever criminal ruling against a New Jersey firm for violation of the state's Air Pollution Control Act. Salvatore Monte, of Staten Island, N.Y., will teach the class at Bayonne High and other schools as community service required of his pre-trial intervention program, said William Maderer, Monte's lawyer.
Maderer, based in Newark, N.J., said specific details of the teaching program have not been completed.
In all, Monte, the inventor and manufacturer of Kenflex-brand polymeric plasticizer, must complete 200 hours of community service during two years, including the classroom teaching. He also must avoid other infractions in order to have all criminal charges pending against him dropped under the intervention program, Maderer said.
Criminal sentencing on charges against the firm is set for June 16 in New Jersey Superior Court in Hudson County.
A five-count state indictment against Monte and Kenrich Petrochemicals handed down in January marked the first time criminal charges had been lodged for violations of New Jersey air pollution laws.
The March 23 civil settlement in the case ordered the company to pay $244,000 to the state Department of Environmental Protection's spill prevention fund, in addition to cleaning the Bayonne site, said Edward Bonanno, New Jersey deputy attorney general.
Bonanno said violations at the Bayonne site occurred between 1990 and 1993 and were not a result ``of the state being overzealous in its enforcement.''
Criminal charges alleged the company had abandoned 55-gallon barrels of napthalene and paraformaldehyde outside, in violation of state chemical storage laws, for more than 90 days. The company also failed to properly fix a leaking chemical filtration element to the satisfaction of state pollution officials, the company's lawyer, Paul Nittoly of Morristown, N.J., said.
Charges were filed after a raid on the site by Environmental Crimes Bureau officials and others in late 1993.
The company had been operating at the site since 1948.
