NJ Company to Pay $500,000 Fine For Illegal Dumping

A New Jersey recycling company has agreed to pay a $500,000 fine for helping to illegally dump more than 8,000 tons of construction debris at a farm in upstate New York.

North Bergen-based Eagle Recycling was sentenced Monday in Utica, N.Y. The company will have to pay more than $70,000 in restitution and cleanup costs.

Earlier this year Eagle pleaded guilty to conspiring to violate the Clean Water Act's ban on filling wetlands and committing wire fraud in order to do it.

Prosecutors say Eagle and its coconspirators dumped the asbestos-contaminated debris on farmland near New York's Mohawk River in 2006 and disguised the crime by using a fake state permit.

The conspirators allegedly planned to continue dumping the refuse in wetlands and the river's flood plain over five years.

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