Recycling Company Fined, Put on Probation

A Superior Court in Rhode Island has ordered Enviro Crushing & Screening, Inc. to pay $125,000 in fines and serve five years' probation for operating construction and demolition debris processing facilities without a license at two separate locations in Johnston, R.I.

The order was issued last week after Joseph Vinagro, manager of Enviro Crushing & Screening, Inc. entered a Nolo plea on behalf of the company on three criminal counts, stemming from charges brought by the Department of Environmental Management's Office of Compliance and Inspection in March 2001.

DEM's original charges included numerous criminal counts of operating unlicensed construction and demolition debris facilities at 116 Shun Pike in Johnston and at a nearby A Street location. The Shun Pike address is also the listed business address of Patriot Hauling Co., Inc. and Patriot Disposal Co., Inc. Vinagro is president of both companies, and both were named in some of DEM's original charges.

During a three-year time period, beginning in 1999, DEM inspections of the Shun Pike property revealed increasing amounts of construction and demolition debris, which, by August 2000, totaled over 55,000 cubic yards of material. That was four months after DEM had issued a Notice of Violation to Patriot Hauling Co. Inc. ordering it to cease operating the construction and demolition processing facility without DEM approval. Later that year, DEM criminal investigators and Attorney General auditors executed a search warrant for the Shun Pike property, and seized evidence, after observing numerous Patriot Hauling and Patriot Disposal trucks dumping construction and demolition debris at that address. In early 2001, after surveillance revealed that Patriot Hauling Co., Inc. trucks were hauling construction and demolition debris from the Shun Pike address to the A Street address, another search uncovered over 31,000 cubic yards of construction and demolition debris disposed at that location.