A Seymour manufacturing company was ordered Thursday to pay $2.4 million in damages after failing to maintain a wastewater treatment system, according to federal prosecutors.

In September 2016, the company, Marmon Utility LLC, discharged almost 11,000 gallons of water with high concentrations of lead and zinc into the town’s sewage treatment plant. The water that goes to this plant, which is primarily designed to treat human waste and not pollutants or chemicals in industrial wastewater, is ultimately discharged into the Naugatuck River, according to court documents.

Marmon Utility, which is a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway, was sentenced in federal court in Bridgeport Thursday for violating the Clean Water Act, according to Leonard Boyle, the United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut.

According to the U.S. Attorney’s office, the company violated the law by “knowingly failing to properly operate and maintain the industrial wastewater treatment system and sludge-processing equipment at the Kerite Power Cable & Pump factory” on Day Street in Seymour. Marmon Utility owns and operates the factory.

The company pleaded guilty to the offense in December 2021, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Of the $2.4 million, $800,000 is going to the government as a federal penalty and $1.6 million is a community service payment to remediate the Naugatuck River. Marmon Utility LLC will also be under federal probation for three years.

Marmon Utility’s factory in Seymour, the Kerite Power Cable & Pump Cable factory, manufactures large power cables and generates industrial wastewater containing heavy metals such as lead and zinc. Under its permit from the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, Marmon Utility could discharge its industrial wastewater to the Seymour sewage treatment plant, which is primarily designed to treat human waste and not pollutants or chemicals in industrial wastewater. The water exiting the treatment plant is ultimately discharged into rivers, lakes and the sea, according to court documents.

This permit limits the amount of wastewater the factory could discharge to the sewage treatment plant. It also required the company to pretreat its industrial wastewater to remove heavy metals, such as lead and zinc, before the water was discharged to the Seymour sewage plant, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.

An investigation revealed that the company had been “cutting back on its environmental compliance program for many years,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office said. The company didn’t have an employee with an environmental background running the wastewater treatment system since February 2004.

The operator of the wastewater treatment system became ill in March 2016. Instead, Marmon Utility's maintenance employees ran the system for at least five months. These employees lacked training on properly running the treatment system, such as checking for the pH, maintaining its sludge filter press or checking or changing certain filters. These employees also didn’t have access to the system’s operational manuals, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.

“These were all key components of the treatment system used to remove heavy metals from the factory’s industrial wastewater,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office added.

In September 2016, the superintendent of the Seymour treatment plant saw “rusty brown wastewater” flowing into the plant, interfering with the plant’s ability to treat sewage, and alerted DEEP.

The superintendent took water samples and determined the rusty brown influent had a lead concentration about 127 times more than what is normal at the plant, and a zinc concentration more than 10 times over the normal amount, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.

In the next several days, the superintendent ordered several truckloads of microorganisms to break down the unprocessed sewage. It took the treatment plant two weeks to return to normal operations.

DEEP and the plant superintendent inspected the Marmon Utility facility in late September 2016 and agreed that the factory had discharged the rusty brown influent. DEEP then issued a notice of violation

DEEP determined that the company did not process sludge in the filter since the wastewater treatment operator left in March 2016.

On Sept. 7 and Sept. 8, 2016, the factory had discharged almost 11,000 gallons of industrial wastewater, exceeding the daily discharge limit of 4,900 gallons on the company’s DEEP permit, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

DEEP also sampled the factory’s discharge tank, which flows to the Seymour sewage treatment plant, and discovered that the lead and zinc concentrations were greater than what was allowed on the company’s permit. In terms of lead, there was 69 times more than was allowed and 8.5 times more zinc than was allowed.

These employees, who ran the facility from April to September 2016, also told investigators that when certain tanks became full and the system was imbalanced, they emptied the tank by opening certain valves to discharge the wastewater without treating it. In October 2016, the 3,000-gallon holding tank at Marmon Utility’s wastewater treatment system held 1,000 gallons of sludge, the U.S. Attorney’s office said.

“By this point, Marmon had stopped operating the sludge filter press routinely,” according to court documents.

Court documents state that Marmon Utility knowingly failed to operate and maintain the wastewater treatment system and sludge-processing equipment from April to September 2016. The company also failed to notify DEEP of improperly bypassing a part of the treatment system by stopping sludge processing in the sludge filter and exceeding its daily discharge limit in September 2016.

Liz Hardaway is a breaking news reporter for Hearst Connecticut Media through the Hearst Fellowship Program.

She previously worked at the San Antonio Express-News to help cover city hall and local issues. She also worked at the Sun Newspapers in Southwest Florida as a general assignment reporter covering politics, business, and health. 

Liz graduated from Ohio Wesleyan University in 2018 with a B.A. in journalism. She enjoys cooking, reading and playing with her dachshund, Finn.