Kentucky man pleads guilty in case involving shipments of radioactive waste
A Kentucky man has pleaded guilty to violating federal safety regulations in connection with illegally hauling tons of radioactive waste to a landfill in Estill County.
Cory David Hoskins pleaded guilty Wednesday in federal court to two charges of shipping the waste without the proper labeling.
Hoskins faces up to five years in prison and fine of up to $250,000 when he is sentenced in June.
The indictment against him also included charges of mail fraud, punishable by up to 20 years in prison, in relation to five checks totaling $127,110 he received for shipping the waste.
Those charges will be dismissed under the plea deal.
Hoskins operated a company called Advanced TENORM Services in West Liberty, according to court documents.
TENORM stands for “technologically enhanced naturally occurring radioactive material.” It is a waste product of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, to recover oil and natural gas, and is classified as hazardous because of low-level radioactivity.
Hoskins’ company contracted to haul and dispose of waste from the oil and gas industry in 2015 and 2016, according to his plea agreement.
Trucking companies that haul hazardous waste are supposed to have a special safety permit, and the material and trucks hauling it are supposed to be marked with notices that the material is hazardous.
One reason for that is to let police and firefighters know what is in the truck if it is in a wreck.
Hoskins told the head of a company in West Virginia that he was an expert in testing for radium but he didn’t do any tests to figure out the level of radioactivity in the sludge before hiring trucking companies to transport it, according to his plea agreement.
He also hired trucking companies that didn’t have a permit to handle hazardous waste; didn’t tell the truckers the sludge was hazardous; and didn’t properly label the containers, he acknowledged.
At least one driver asked if the waste was hazardous, and Hoskins told him it wasn’t.
Hoskins arranged for 46 shipments of the waste from West Virginia to Kentucky in July and August 2015, according to his plea.
Hoskins had the waste hauled to the Blue Ridge Landfill in Estill County, which was not rated to handle it.
The Herald-Leader reported in 2017 that Hoskins arranged to ship 2.4 million pounds of low-level radioactive waste into Kentucky in 2015 and early 2016.
The dumping caused a good deal of concern in Estill County, in part because there are schools nearby, but state officials said in 2016 that the waste did not pose an imminent health threat.
