Cecil County Man Pleads Guilty to Open Burning on Earleville Farm

BALTIMORE, MD ( July 30, 2009) - Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler announced today that William Sanders, Jr., 41, of Earleville pled guilty in the District Court of Maryland for Cecil County to illegally causing an open fire and burning scrap tires and other assorted solid waste without a permit. The Honorable Bonnie G. Schneider granted probation before judgment and 12 months supervised probation. Judge Schneider also ordered Sanders to pay court costs, $942.00 to the Clean Air Fund, and to assist in the removal of the remaining solid waste from the property to a permitted facility. The maximum penalty for the offense, which is a misdemeanor, is up to one year in jail and a $25,000 fine.

The criminal case results from Sanders illegally burning piles of solid waste without a permit. The farm owner only had a permit to burn hedgerow and had received a site complaint from the Maryland Department of the Environment requiring him to remove scrap tires, abandoned house trailers and other solid waste to a permitted solid waste acceptance facility. When inspectors visited the site in July, 2008, they discovered that large amounts of the solid waste had been burned rather than removed. Sanders admitted to the burning.

The case was investigated by the Environmental Crimes Unit of the Office of the Attorney General and the Maryland State Police with the assistance of the Maryland Department of the Environment and the Cecil County Health Department, Environmental Health Services.