Columbia SC (1/4/2019) – United States Attorney Sherri A. Lydon announced today that Michael Greene, age 44, of Columbia, South Carolina, was charged in a one-count Indictment by a federal Grand Jury in Columbia with a knowing violation of the Clean Water Act.

According to the Indictment, Greene worked for an environmental company offering hazardous waste disposal services. Greene’s job was to transport the liquid runoff from solid waste at an Eastover landfill to the Florence Wastewater Management Facility. Instead, he illegally dumped the liquid runoff, or ‘leachate,’ into the Leesburg Branch Creek on multiple occasions in mid-2017.

Greene faces a maximum penalty of three years in federal prison, with a potential fine up to $250,000.

The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC), and the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources (DNR) investigated the case. Assistant United States Attorney Winston David Holliday, Jr., of the Columbia office is prosecuting the case.

The United States Attorney stated that all charges in the Indictment are merely accusations and that all defendants are presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty.