A Texas recycling company and its owner have been hit with a $60 million penalty after years of legal battles surrounding a 2019 chemical spill.
A chemical spill allegedly turned a Colorado River tributary black and left fish dead on the shores.
Attorney General Ken Paxton announced that his office secured a multi-million dollar judgment against David Polston and his collection of companies—Inland Environmental and Remediation, Inland Recycling, and Boundary Ventures—for their “extensive environmental misconduct.”
Polston and his companies’ misconduct included the illegal dumping of petroleum waste and the collection of other hazardous chemicals into the Skull Creek area.
“I will not allow rogue corporations to pollute Texas’s land and rivers by illegally dumping dangerous chemicals that kill our wildlife and hurt the environment,” Paxton said.
The spill, first reported in 2019, caused Skull Creek, located in Fayette County, to run black with pollutants, triggering an immediate alarm among residents and environmental experts.
Investigators later found unauthorized “disposal pits” and leaking containers filled with toxic substances near the area, quickly linking the contamination to Polston’s companies.
Polston and his businesses had previously accepted payments for industrial waste disposal under the guise of eco-friendly recycling practices, according to Paxton’s office.
Instead, state investigators found the waste was being dumped illegally and quite brazenly.
In addition to the $60 million penalty, Paxton’s office secured a court order forcing the property owner to restore the polluted land. The verdict also includes remediation costs, but the timeline for full environmental restoration of the Skull Creek area still remains a bit cloudy.
“Companies that do business in Texas have a duty to take care of the land and follow the law. If you mess with Texas, you will face the consequences,” Paxton added.
The Attorney General’s office has not disclosed whether criminal charges will follow, but the civil judgment is among the largest in Texas environmental cases within the past few years.