From Industry News
Minnesota e-scrap lake dumping case continues
One of the
bodies of water in the Land of 10,000 Lakes was a dumping ground for an
unscrupulous e-scrap processor, according to an ongoing criminal case in
Minnesota.
In Spring of 2006, computer monitors began
floating to the surface of Rice Lake in Central Minnesota and in October of
that same year, authorities found a boat filled with e-scrap from St. Paul,
Minnesota's Hamline University. Hamline officials had turned the equipment over to a still-publicly-unnamed recycling contractor more than a dozen years ago and were surprised by the discovery, according to local news reports. Minnesota authorities believe the computers were dumped there shortly before the first news of the floating monitors.
The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (St. Paul) is investigating the dumping. "It was intentional and it was criminal," said Jeff Connell, manager of compliance and enforcement for the MPCA. "We have people of interest [regarding the case]. Do we have people we are circling in on? Yes, we do.''
Hamline has paid for the computers to be taken away again, and has reimbursed the MPCA $32,500 for expenses relating to the case.