This is a guest post from Bruce Pasfield at Alston & Bird.
The government resting its case this morning and the defense called its first witness, none other than the defendant John Tuma. Tuma provided background information about himself and about his ownership of the ARKLA wastewater treatment plant. Tuma explained that in September 2007, he sold the plant to CCS for $5.4 million dollars. Of that amount, $1.2 million went to brokerage fees, half went to taxes, $800,000 was distributed among five key employees and he netted approximately $1.5 million from the sale. He testified that prior to the sale he had already spent several million dollars on the plant and in fact, he has spent more than he received from the sale.
Tuma testified that before the sale he was physically at the plant for the most part. After the sale he started looking at acquisitions and was not there very often and Wayne Mallet was put in charge as interim plant manager. Tuma explained that he knew more about the plant than anyone. He testified that quite often he would receive phone calls from plant employees including Cody Tuma, Wayne Mallet and Todd Cage asking for advice about various operational issues at the plant. Mr. Tuma was adamant that during these calls he never asked them to do anything illegal.
Mr. Tuma explained that in February 2007, the company purchased Pride Oilfield Company. The owner of Pride, Troy Yonker, had little experience with plant operations and took over as the new general manager at the plant. Mr. Tuma testified that during the USEPA’s April 2007 inspection Mr. Yonker essentially threw up his hands and asked John Tuma to come back and handle the inspection. Mr. Tuma indicated that he was in Canada at the time, but that he did come back and help out during the inspection. Mr. Tuma described Mr. Yonker as an “unhappy person”. He said Mr. Yonker had upset plant personnel and that it was “my way or no way” with Mr. Yonker and that he alienated the existing employees. He also said that Mr. Yonker brought in his own people and was hard on the people already in place. He said that Mr. Yonker left the facility in June or July and moved his people to another location. After Mr. Yonker left, Larry Smith was asked to be interim plant manager. Mr. Smith had been the lab manager at the facility up to that point. Mr. Tuma said that in this time frame he was at the facility very little, only 2-3 times per month. He said that CCS eventually hired a new plant manager Jim Davis who took over in September 2007.
When asked about his relationship with the various environmental regulatory agencies, Mr. Tuma said that the company had disputes with the regulatory agencies on a regular basis and that they “bumped heads a lot” on permitting and other issues.
Mr. Tuma explained that the first time he learned about allegations of illegal discharges was not until October 2007 when he was told that the company was conducting an internal investigation. At that time he was put on leave and was fired two weeks later. He said that after he was put on leave he was asked to come to the plant to provide a statement. He said that he was escorted into the plant and brought to a conference room with four or five people. He said it was a brief meeting in which he was asked four or five questions and then was escorted out. He also said that he did not testify before the grand jury because he could not have his counsel present.
Mr. Tuma explained that during the two lab floods, he got calls from Todd Cage and Larry Smith and that neither Mr. Cage nor Mr. Smith nor any other employee could provide an explanation of how the flood of the lab occurred. He said that he was very upset with both Mr. Cage and Mr. Smith during phone calls in which they spoke about the cause of the flood and at one point, threatened to fire Mr. Cage.
Regarding the welded pipes that were claimed to be used for illegal discharges, Tuma admitted designing those pipes. He said that they were installed because the City had insisted that ARKLA have a recirculation line in the event that its discharges did not meet discharge parameters. He said the City wanted ARKLA to account for all the flow from a discharge that did not meet parameters and that the pipe was installed at a point past the flow meters so that it could go through the flow meters and be accounted for before going back into the plant for further treatment.
Mr. Tuma is expected to resume his testimony after lunch and consume most if not all the afternoon session.
More later.
As always, feel free to contact me at walter.james@jamespllc.com.
WDJiii