DNR Recognized for Investigating Flint Company's Illegal Dumping

The Michigan Department of Natural Resources is being honored for its investigation of a Flint company that illegally dumped millions of gallons of toxic liquid into the city's sewer system. That sewer system then flowed into the Flint River.

That illegal dumping occurred during a period when the city's drinking water was being taken from the Flint River.

Oil Chem Inc. of Flint reportedly dumped more than 47 million gallons of leachate that it was accepting from landfills. Oil Chem was not licensed to receive such waste and was not licensed to dispose of polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) waste.

The company, which has been operating in Flint since 1978, claims to be a 'non-hazardous waste treatment facility' on its website.

Sentence and Fine

The company's owner, Robert Massey was investigated and deemed responsible for authorizing his company to accept leachate from eight landfills across the state beginning in 2007. In May of this year, Massey signed a plea deal and was sentenced to one year in prison.

Oil Chem also paid a civil fine of $250,000 to the city of the Flint and had its waste hauler license revoked, according to WJBK.

DNR Officers Honored

The DNR's Vence Woods and Gary Hagler accepted the 2021 'Chief David Cameron Leadership in Environmental Crimes Award on Monday at the annual convention held by the International Association of Chiefs of Police.

The investigation into Oil Chem's illegal dumping began when an employee at the Flint Wastewater Treatment Plant blew the whistle, suspecting that Oil Chem had been dumping the harmful liquid illegally.

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LOOK: See how much gasoline cost the year you started driving

To find out more about how has the price of gas changed throughout the years, Stacker ran the numbers on the cost of a gallon of gasoline for each of the last 84 years. Using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (released in April 2020), we analyzed the average price for a gallon of unleaded regular gasoline from 1976 to 2020 along with the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for unleaded regular gasoline from 1937 to 1976, including the absolute and inflation-adjusted prices for each year.

Read on to explore the cost of gas over time and rediscover just how much a gallon was when you first started driving.