Kentucky firm, principal indicted for illegally dumping contaminated railroad ties in Chenango County

New York authorities have indicted a Kentucky company for illegally dumping contaminated railroad ties treated with hazardous materials in Chenango County and creating fake scale tickets to conceal the illegal disposal.

Cross Tie Disposal, Inc. — of Hickory, Kentucky — faces a 42-count indictment, New York Attorney General Letitia James and Basil Seggos, commissioner of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), announced Thursday.

Harold Young, 48, Cross Tie Disposal’s VP, is also named in the indictment. The firm is a freight shipping and trucking company.

As outlined in the formal accusation, Cross Tie Disposal and Young are charged with one count of grand larceny in the second degree; 30 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree; and 11 counts of endangering public health, safety, or the environment in the third degree.

If convicted, Young faces up to 5-15 years in state prison and fines of more than $1 million, per the attorney general’s news release.

“Failing to properly dispose hazardous materials jeopardizes the health of New Yorkers and our environment,” James said. “Harold Young and his company allegedly disregarded public health and the law in their pursuit of profit. This type of conduct will never be permitted in our state, and anyone who attempts to put our neighborhoods in harm’s way will be held accountable. My office will continue to use every tool at its disposal to derail fraud and stop these bad actors dead in their tracks.”

Young and Cross Tie Disposal were arraigned Thursday in Chenango County Court. Young was released to the Chenango County pre-trial release program. Young and Cross Tie Disposal are scheduled to appear in court on April 18.

“New York state will never tolerate the illegal dumping of hazardous materials,” Seggos said. “This joint enforcement action by DEC law enforcement officers and investigators from Attorney General James’ office is another example of how New York will continue to hold polluters accountable for their blatant disregard of our environmental laws in Chenango County and in any corner of the state.”

Case background

The charges are the result of a joint investigation by the Office of the Attorney General (OAG) and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC).

In 2015, the County of Chenango Industrial Development Agency (IDA) created the Chenango County Rail Revitalization project to repair and improve railroad tracks in Chenango County. The IDA selected Frontier Railroad Services, LLC (Frontier), a railroad contractor based in Pennsylvania, to oversee the project.

In February 2016, Frontier hired Cross Tie Disposal as a subcontractor to properly dispose of old cross ties, which are hazardous old wood beams that hold railroad tracks in place and ensure there is proper distance between rails. The cross ties contain a variety of wood preservatives called creosote, which comes from the high-temperature treatment of wood and coal tar.

In 2008, the New York State Phase-out of Creosote Law banned the manufacturing, sale, and use of creosote and required all products containing it to be disposed of in a landfill permitted by DEC.

Cross Tie Disposal was supposed to dispose of this waste at a specific regulated site in Erie County, but under the supervision and direction of Young, it instead allegedly dumped the contaminated railroad ties on a property in Chenango County. To conceal this “illegal disposal,” Young allegedly created 30 fraudulent receipts, known as scale tickets, to falsely show that the ties were properly disposed at a facility in Erie County.

Relying on these fake tickets, Frontier paid Cross Tie Disposal more than $50,000 for the disposal, “unaware” that the railroad ties were illegally dumped on a Chenango County property.

In March 2020, DEC officers, accompanied by OAG detectives, collected samples of the railroad ties that were dumped in Chenango County while they were testing for the presence of hazardous substances. Subsequent laboratory analysis revealed that the ties were contaminated with more than 100 gallons each of 11 different hazardous substances.