US v. John Emerson Tuma – Day Six – Afternoon Session
The afternoon session began with a re-direct of Mr. Tuma by Mr. Boren. During initial questioning, Mr. Boren went through each of the witnesses who the government had previously established during the cross-examination of Mr. Tuma were reportedly lying (according to Mr. Tuma). For each witness, John Tuma testified that there was some potential underlying motive for testifying against him at trial. With respect to Cody Tuma and Wayne Mallet, John Tuma testified that he believed that the ARKLA facility was not configured for them to illegally discharge wastewater as they both had previously described, but noted that he had no personal knowledge of the reported actions. In an attempt to explain his son’s damaging testimony against him last week, Mr. Tuma maintains Cody Tuma is angry at him for not paying for a lawyer for him in an unrelated custody dispute. Mr. Tuma also testified that he believed some of the witnesses who testified in the government’s case against him simply did not remember events correctly.
During the re-direct, John Tuma testified that he did not serve as the plant manager in 2007, and maintained that he was working solely in a “business development” capacity for CCS during that time. He testified that his employment contract with CCS was lengthy, but denied that he served as manager of the ARKLA facility during inspections by the USEPA in April and June 2007. Instead, he testified that Troy Yonkers “was onsite running the show” and therefore responsible for the day-to-day management of the plant during that time. Mr. Tuma testified that he was asked by his employer to return to the Shreveport facility as plant manager in July 2007 to get the facility operational again.
Much of the re-direct was spent describing the pipe extension that was added to the facility’s outfall to the Red River. Mr. Tuma testified that “pigging” of the pipe to the outfall was the reason for the extension of pipe that was removed from the outfall and presented by the government as a means for hiding unlawful discharges to the Red River. Mr. Tuma testified that the length of the pipe that extended under the river was needed so that a “pig launcher” could be attached to the pipe for purposes of cleaning out the outfall line. The line of questioning was eventually halted by Judge Stagg when it wandered outside the scope of the government’s cross-examination.
The final area of re-direct focused on the custom-built 3-inch and 6-inch fused pipe removed from the facility. Mr. Tuma again maintained that the pipe was created in early October 2007 to re-circulate partially treated wastewater back into the treatment process for further treatment. Mr. Tuma testified that the fused-pipe was never completed and the re-circulation plan using the custom-built pipe was never implemented at the facility. He asserted that the 3-inch line did not have the same calcium build-up that was reportedly evident in the 6-inch line, which he contends demonstrates that the 3-inch line was never used.
The next witness presented by the defense was Curtiss Wright. Mr. Wright, the President of Republic Contractors, was re-called to briefly testify about certain hand-drawn sketches he made with Mr. Tuma in the summer of 2007. The sketches were created in connection with a proposed recirculation line reportedly requested by the City in a mandate issued on May 29, 2007. Mr. Wright testified that he and Mr. Tuma were attempting to meet the City’s directives concerning a new discharge line from the facility to the City’s POTW. Mr. Wright testified that he did not believe the particular schematic was ever used or completed by ARKLA. During his cross-examination by the government, Mr. Wright was shown the fused 6-inch and 3-inch pipe that had been removed from the facility and admitted that such pipe was not part of the proposed recirculation plan. He also admitted that he had never seen such a pipe during his 48 years in the industry, and would not have been something proposed during the creation of his hand-drawn schematic.
The defense’s next witness of the day was John King, an attorney from Baton Rouge who previously represented ARKLA and Mr. Tuma. Mr. King testified that he first began working for Mr. Tuma in March 2005, and was generally involved in representing ARKLA with its various permitting requirements. Much of Mr. King’s testimony focused on various permitting and enforcement actions during the years he represented ARKLA, and became long and tedious at times. After sustained objections concerning the relevance of such testimony, the defense directed Mr. King’s testimony to a cap that was placed on the outfall to the Red River in August 2006. Mr. King’s testimony on this topic was that he was present at the outfall in August 2006 when a cap was placed on the discharge line leading from the facility to the Red River. Mr. King then testified at length about a letter he drafted on June 19, 2007 concerning his proposed plans for addressing issues addressed by the USEPA and LDEQ concerning the ARKLA facility. Mr. King testified that his proposed suggestions, as reflected in his letter, included having John Tuma spend more time at the plant, retraining plant employees, and adding a refrigerator compositor to the treatment process to more effectively monitor discharges.
The cross of Mr. King was very brief. The government established that Mr. King does not have any personal knowledge of whether the cap was ever removed from the outfall line after August 2006. The government also established that Mr. King was not present at the facility during some of the water sampling he had referenced in earlier testimony during direct examination. A brief redirect by the defense established that Mr. King was aware that the cap on the outfall line was removed in December 2006 to allow ARKLA to discharge to the Red River under its new permit, but that he had no knowledge of the cap being removed at anytime between August 2006 and December 2006.
The final witness of the day for the defense was Shaun Smith, a representative of Ana-Lab. Mr. Smith testified that Ana-Lab had previously performed water testing and other services for Mr. Tuma and ARKLA in connection with the discharging of treated wastewater from the facility. Mr. Smith testified that Ana-Lab’s initial work for ARKLA was generally limited to testing treated water before it was discharged to the City or the Red River. During ARKLA’s permitting issues in June 2007, Ana-Lab was engaged by ARKLA to serve as a third-party responsible for testing and controlling discharges from ARKLA to the City. A standard operating procedure was created by Ana-Lab and put into effect on August 2, 2007, whereby Ana-Lab was to implement a lock-out/tag-out procedure for certain valves used in the discharge process. The SOP would also establish that Ana-Lab was to maintain sole control of the keys required to unlock the valves required for discharging to the City. The testimony for the day ended with Mr. Smith discussing a diagram of the ARKLA facility that reportedly showed the location of the various valves addressed by the lock-out/tag-out portion of the Ana-Lab SOP.
Mr. Smith will take the stand for his remaining direct examination by the defense today. Following any cross-examination by the government, the next witnesses up for the defense appear to be Ben Head, another Ana-Lab employee, and Charles Tubbs, a former ARKLA employee.
More later.
As always, feel free to contact me at walter.james@jamespllc.com.
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