Source: Reading Eagle (PA), November 29, 2012
Posted on: http://envfpn.advisen.com
A Tilden Township mobile home park owner was charged Wednesday with illegally discharging untreated sewage into a Schuylkill River tributary and falsifying permit applications, the state Attorney General’s office reported.
Frank Perano, 55, of the 2800 block of Main Street, Morgantown, faces three counts of unlawful conduct under the Clean Air Act and as many counts of tampering with public records, Attorney General Linda Kelly said in a prepared release.
Kelly said an investigation revealed that untreated or improperly treated sewage was discharged from the Village at Pleasant Hills Mobile Home Park in Tilden.
The park near Hamburg is one of more than 70 that Perano owns in Pennsylvania, Delaware and Virginia.
For Pleasant Hills and two other mobile home parks in York and Dauphin counties, Perano also submitted renewal applications for pollutant-discharge permits that contained falsified information regarding sewage treatment, Kelly reported.
Perano could not be reached for comment Wednesday.
Filed by the attorney general’s Environmental Crimes Section, the charges will be prosecuted in Berks County.
They come two months after the state Department of Environmental Protection and the federal Environmental Protection Agency announced a $1.3 million settlement with Perano and a series of his corporations, which were accused of violating regulations related to clean drinking water and wastewater treatment.
In a joint consent decree, Perano agreed to pay the settlement and take measures to address the treatment problems.
Perano cooperated with the investigation and did not admit liability as part of the settlement, according to the EPA.
A judge has yet to sign the consent decree, but the DEP does not expect the attorney general’s charges to affect the settlement, said DEP spokeswoman Lisa Kasianowitz.