Guilty plea to dumping concrete in lake

A man who helped build a bypass over Buggs Island Lake pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court today to dumping concrete waste into the Southside Virginia lake.

Loch L. Louman, 47, of Gig Harber, Wash., will be sentenced April 30. The crime is a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail and a fine of up to $25,000.

As part of a plea agreement, a second charge, of knowingly pumping concrete slurry into the lake, is to be dismissed at sentencing. That charge is a felony.

Louman was one of two men charged with dumping slurry, a uncured form of concrete, in the lake in August 2001 during construction of the Clarksville bypass in Mecklenburg County. The lake is also called Kerr Reservoir.

The other man, Rick Callahan, 43, of Kennewick, Wash., made the same deal, pleading guilty to the misdemeanor on Jan. 22. He also will be sentenced April 30.

Louman was project manager and Callahan was superintendent for the bypass project.

They worked for AMEC Civil LLC, a contractor for the Virginia Department of Transportation.

During construction of bridge supports in the lake, equipment problems made it necessary to remove some concrete that had been poured, court records show.

Instead of hauling the waste concrete to a landfill, the men dumped it in the lake, which is a violation of federal clean-water laws, court records show.

I worked on that job for 3 years and was a witness to what happened that day, and it wasn't a situation where concrete was just dumped in the Lake. Rick and Loch are fall guys for Jack Palmer of AMEC who said do what it takes. He all of a sudden said he new nothing of it at the time of the incident. I could give the details but whats the use.

Does anyone have a copy of the clean water laws or a link to a place to read them?  Thanks a lot.

rhaight@vt.edu

Hey Beater42, i dont know anything about what happen, I just hate to see our guys getting in trouble, we all have done things that we could now go to jail for. I want the operators to know they can go to jail and get fined. I would love to know the details of what did happen. Sucks for these guys. How come we can poor millions of yards of concrete on the ground every year but if some drop on the street its a crime or is some lands on the gutter you can go to jail, silly stupid.

Now this is not a picture of the job site. I just thought it might show how things used to be but are no longer this way anymore.