The owner of an environmental contracting company in St. Louis pleaded guilty to falsifying an asbestos inspection report created for a building scheduled for demolition. Calvin Burks, owner of J & C Environmental Services Inc., agreed to plead guilty to a felony charge of making false statements on government documents in federal court earlier this week, according to Acting US Attorney Michael Reap. Mr. Burks will face sentencing before US District Judge Carol Jackson in March, when he may face up to ten years in prison and a quarter-million dollar fine.

Documents in the case stated that Mr. Burks carried out over one hundred asbestos inspections in and around St. Louis for more than twelve months, starting in April 2008, on buildings that were due to be demolished. Mr. Burks gave the inspection reports to the contractors in order to provide them with the time and information needed to prepare for any potential asbestos abatement and removal work that they would need to be carried out prior to demolition.

Prosecutors stated that Mr. Burks provided inspection reports using the letterhead of a firm named Precision Analysis Testing Laboratory to confirm his findings. Precision Analysis had neither carried out the required asbestos testing, nor had they authorized Mr. Burks' use of their documentation.

Instead, Mr. Burks had taken a previous report he had received from Precision Analysis, copied the company's letterhead and used the false reports to provide his customers with faulty data, which often included fictitious analysis on potentially dangerous asbestos-containing material within the structures. For each false report he provided, Mr. Burks received $150 from the contractors.

In turn, the contractors would file the reports with the Environmental Protection Agency in order to comply with the National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants (NESHAP) regulations. The contractors, after receiving approval from both local and federal authorities, began demolishing a structure that was later found to have had asbestos.

In another case involving asbestos fraud, a former fire chief in suburban St. Louis faced federal charges by illegally dumping asbestos from his fire department's offices. Officials in the city of Normandy fired Joseph L. Washington, former chief and president of the Northeast Ambulance and Fire Protection District, after he was accused of failing to file the proper paperwork with the EPA.

The fire department offices were due to undergo renovation and modernization during the summer of 2008. When work crews found asbestos in the walls and pipes of the structure, they did not follow proper procedures for the safe removal of the substance and cleanup of the site itself.

Mr. Washington was scheduled to go on trial this week, but prosecutors agreed to a plea deal that allowed him to plead guilty to one count of violating the Clean Air Act, for which he could face up to six months in federal prison. In exchange, prosecutors dropped additional charges of violating other environmental laws, as well as filing false information on federal bankruptcy documents. While he will not be subject to further criminal prosecution under the agreement, federal attorneys said that Mr. Washington would not be immune from other forms of penalties, such as civil suits or administrative actions.

Sources: St. Louis Today website, St. Louis Business Journal