Summary

On October 28, 2013, Mathew Bowman, owner and president of Port Arthur Chemical and Environmental Services (PACES), was sentenced in U.S. District Court, Beaumont, Texas, to 12 months confinement, ordered to pay a fine of $5,000 and to complete 12 months of supervised release for causing the death of an employee who died of asphyxiation due to hydrogen sulfide inhalation on December 18, 2008, while working at the PACES facility.   

This investigation was initiated in response to the deaths of two PACES employees who were exposed to unsafe levels of hydrogen sulfide, a poisonous gas, which was released while they treated and processed hazardous materials. The investigation revealed that Bowman was directing employees, including the two that died, to load tanker trucks containing hazardous waste, flammable liquids, poisonous gases, and caustic liquids, and then transporting them without the required identifying placards. The employees transported the hazardous materials between PACES and a deep well injection site.   

In addition, Bowman ordered hazardous waste water loads, which were received into his Houston, Texas, facility, to be illegally transported on public roads without the required placards. PACES employees accepted hazardous waste and treated it without the proper Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) or Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) permits and submitted false shipping documents to conceal these loads were being treated at an unpermitted facility.  

We conducted this investigation jointly with the EPA-CID, Houston Police Department, Texas Parks and Wildlife, and TCEQ Criminal Enforcement.