CONCORD, NEW HAMPSHIRE – United States Attorney John P. Kacavas and Michael Hubbard, the Special Agent in Charge of the Boston Division of the United States Environmental Protection Agency, Criminal Investigation Division, announced that Laurence Cellamare, of Nashua, New Hampshire, has pleaded guilty to making false statements to the EPA.

According to documents filed in United States District Court, the offense occurred while Cellamare was employed as the Environmental Coordinator for a business in Seabrook, New Hampshire, Aero Dynamics, Inc. (“Aero Dynamics” or “AD”), that performed metal finishing and plating for military and commercial applications. Aero Dynamic’s manufacturing process generated wastewater that contained quantities of cadmium, copper nickel, and zinc. Aero Dymamics discharged its wastewater to a publicly owned wastewater treatment plant in Seabrook, New Hampshire (“the Seabrook facility”).

Beginning in September 2002, the EPA attempted to insure Aero Dynamics compliance with he the federal Clean Water Act, by directing the company to analyze samples its wastewater once each month, and submit semi-annual reports of the analysis’ to the Seabrook facility every June and December. In each semi-annual report, Aero Dynamics was required to, among other things, state the average monthly amount of cadmium, copper, nickel and zinc in the wastewater it discharged to the Seabrook facility during the six month period covered by the report.

Starting in December 2004 up through and including December 2008, Cellamare knowingly submitted semi-annual reports to the EPA that falsely failed to disclose that the amount of cadmium, zinc and nickel that Aero Dymamics had discharged to the Seabrook facility exceeded the EPA’s allowable monthly averages for those toxic pollutants.

During the same period, Cellamare knowingly submitted three additional semi-annual reports to the EPA that falsely under-reported the amount of cadmium that Aero Dynamics’ had discharged to the Seabrook facility. However, the actual amount of cadmium that was discharged on those dates did not exceed the EPA’s allowable monthly averages for cadmium.

Cellamare is scheduled to be sentenced by Chief United States District Court Judge Steven McAuliffe on April 30, 2010.

The maximum prison term for make false statements to an agency of the federal government is five years. It not likely that a sentence of that length will be imposed in this case because Cellamare will be sentenced pursuant to advisory federal sentencing guidelines.

 

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