Storage Company Owner Fined For Illegally Dumping Human Waste In Desert
SAN DIEGO (AP) - A storage company and its owner have been sentenced to time served and ordered to pay nearly $60,000 for illegally disposing of thousands of gallons of untreated human waste in the desert east of San Diego.
Federal prosecutors say Michael Mamelli of Glamis Dunes Storage Inc. received the sentence Monday after pleading guilty last year. The judge ordered the corporation to pay a fine of $8,000 and ordered the company and Mamelli to jointly forfeit $50,000, the amount earned in the violation.
The storage site near the Imperial Sand Dunes Recreation Area had a permit to operate a 20,000-gallon tank for holding human waste from recreational vehicles that a licensed hauler would take to a wastewater treatment plant.
But the defendants admitted that they installed a leaching system that would pump waste from the tank to under a nearby field.
