United States of America v. Charles Santich

Concord, New Hampshire, criminal defense lawyer represented the Defendant charged with knowingly discharging acidic water into the Souhegan River.

Charles Santich, 60, and his company, Old Dutch Mustard Co., Inc., d/b/a Pilgrim Foods, Inc. dumped acidic water into the Souhegan River in New Hampsire.

The Clean Water Act “CWA” prohibits the discharge of any pollutant into navigable waters of the United States without a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit. According to the court documents and statements made in court, due to a long history of CWA non-compliance beginning in the 1980s, Old Dutch Mustard has been subject to several enforcement actions by the EPA, the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services (“NH DES”), and the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office. As a result of these actions, EPA and NH DES have required continuous monitoring of an Unnamed Stream that flows underneath and in front of the facility, eventually flowing into the Souhegan River. Santich and his company sought to purposefully evade this monitoring. The Souhegan River is one of nineteen rivers that the State of New Hampshire has designated as an important natural resource.

“Throughout years of repeated civil and administrative attempts to encourage Santich and his company to follow the law, Santich lied to state and federal authorities and even purposefully built the illegal infrastructure needed to pump his manufacturing waste into New Hampshire’s waterways, pushing his employees to help him violate the law,” said U.S. Attorney Creegan. “New Hampshire is the best place in the country in which to start and run a business. State and federal agencies tried over and over to help Santich and his company end the pollution that left waterways with fewer fish, and impacted the recreationalists and homeowners who use the Souhegan River. As the result of this years-long scheme of intentional misconduct and deceit, a criminal sanction is necessary to protect the public.”

“This case reflects a deliberate effort to violate environmental laws and evade detection, putting one of New Hampshire’s valued waterways at risk. We appreciate the strong partnership with our federal colleagues in holding the defendant accountable, and I want to thank our federal partners as well as the members of our New Hampshire Department of Justice Environmental Protection Bureau for their long and dedicated work on this case,” said New Hampshire Attorney General John M. Formella. “Protecting our rivers is a top priority, and our office will continue to pursue all appropriate actions to ensure compliance and safeguard New Hampshire’s water quality.”

Santich executed a plan to elude monitoring of the Unnamed Stream, which was required due to past non-compliance with the law, and save on shipping costs by secretly pumping his excess wastewater into the Souhegan River. In May 2017, Santich hired an excavation company to extend an underground pipe to the top of a hill several hundred feet behind the facility. He also had the excavation company construct a drainage ditch or swale to direct water from the pipe into the Souhegan River. To minimize his paper trail, Santich had the owner of the excavation company alter its proposal to remove references to the illegal discharge pipe and drainage ditch.

For the next six years, Santich directed his employees to repeatedly pump his acidic wastewater and stormwater through the underground pipe and ultimately into the Souhegan River. His employees reported that Santich would fire them if they did not assist in the crime. Santich hid this crime from state and federal regulators by, among other things, submitting false documents that concealed the illegal discharge pipe and by obstructing EPA’s efforts to obtain data about the volume of wastewater that flowed through a sump pump he used to illegally pump the wastewater into the river.

After an evidentiary hearing, the Court found that the wastewater Santich pumped into the river caused environmental harm. Prior pollution from Old Dutch caused fish kills in the 1990s and Santich’s discharges continued to pollute the river and prevent its recovery and the return of acid-sensitive fish and other aquatic life to that area of the river. An EPA Toxicologist also testified at sentencing that Santich’s discharges likely contributed to conditions that resulted in a mercury fish consumption advisory in the area of the discharges.

In May of 2023, state inspectors from NH DES discovered wastewater from the facility, with low pH and smelling of vinegar, flowing from the manmade ditch at the top of the hill on the Old Dutch Mustard property into the Souhegan River. Santich falsely told them that the residue from his illegal discharges was the result of a failed attempt to plant mustard seed, a lie he later had employees repeat to criminal investigators. In August 2023, EPA agents executed a search warrant at the facility where they discovered the pipe actively discharging.

EPA’s Criminal Investigation Division investigated this case. Valuable assistance was provided by the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services and the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office. Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew T. Hunter and Trial Attorney R.J. Powers of the Environment and Natural Resources Division prosecuted the case with the assistance of EPA Senior Regional Criminal Enforcement Counsel Dianne G. Chabot.

Santich was sentenced to 18 months in prison and he and Old Dutch were ordered to pay a $1.5 million fine and to establish environmental compliance and ethics programs.