The owners of two Long Island landscaping companies have been arrested in a sting for offering to illegally dump toxic waste for a fee.
Nassau County District Attorney Denis Dillon yesterday announced the arrests of Carlos Correa, 38, of Babylon, operator of Lawn Chem, and Jaime Espinosa, 46, of Hicksville, operator of Thorn Landscaping, on misdemeanor charges.
Both men were charged with attempted unlawful dealing in hazardous waste and attempted endangering of public health, safety or the environment, after investigators pulled a sting on them using fake toxic liquids.
The charges are punishable by up to a year in jail and a fine of up to $25,000. Correa faces twice the penalty as Espinosa because he was charged in two incidents.
Dillon said his office was tipped off by the state Department of Environmental Conservation that the two firms might be willing to illegally dump dangerous chemicals for cash.
The investigators filled several 55-gallon steel drums with liquid that simulated toxic waste. Warning labels were pasted on the outside of the 11 decoy drums, and undercover officers proceeded with the sting.
Dillon said that on Sept. 4, two of Correa’s workers came to the undercover location and loaded six of the drums into a van after being paid $1,500 in cash.
“Before doing so, they removed the hazardous-waste warning labels, explaining that they did so in order not to be caught with marked drums in the van,” he said.
The drums were later found illegally dumped at a Bay Shore landfill site, apparently through a hole in a fence, the DA said.
On Sept. 6, said Dillon, Correa agreed to another waste-removal job for $1,500.
Espinosa, the second suspect, allegedly removed six of the phony toxic drums for $500 on Sept. 18, Dillon said.
Espinosa took what he thought were hundreds of gallons of dangerous chemicals to his Hicksville home, where he put them in his yard and covered them with a blue tarp, Dillon said.
Both men “demonstrated a blatant disregard for state environmental laws and regulations,” said Dillon, who vowed to “apprehend those people who would put public health and the environment at risk.”