The owner of South Point Biomass is apologizing to the community for not remediating asbestos when removing scrap metal from the plant in 2011-2013.

Mark Harris, 59, of Versailles, Kentucky, pleaded in January in the U.S. District Court in Cincinnati to one count of violating the Clean Air Act for knowingly failing to remove the asbestos from the site. On Tuesday, Harris was sentenced to two days in prison, 58 days of house arrest and 200 hours of community service, which was decided on as part of Harris’ plea agreement.

“I express my apologies to everyone impacted by a regretful decision I made several years ago,” Harris said in an email to The Ironton Tribune. “For quite some time, I had a dream to convert an old, coal-fired industrial plant into a state-of-the-art, environmentally friendly and cleaner wood-burning, power generating facility. The goal was to bring green, renewable energy, along with economic development and hundreds of jobs to the community. I tied up my entire net worth in the project and invited many other individual, business and government partners to support the development. They did. It was to be called South Point Biomass Generation, LLC.”
He said that unfortunately, that the dream, for many reasons, took an unexpected turn, which culminated on Jan. 28, 2019 with Harris voluntarily entering into an agreement with the United States Attorney and the USEPA.

“Back in 2007/2008, with the rapid onset of the Great Recession, investments dried up, energy prices dropped and the dream we had envisioned was being threatened,” Harris wrote. “Regardless, I refused to give up on the project and still believed it could succeed.”

The buildings on the property contained asbestos, which was the project’s responsibility and would cost millions to remove and Harris said the company didn’t have the available funds for asbestos remediation.

“I decided to sell scrap steel from the buildings on the property in a misguided attempt to weather the economic downtown and keep the project alive,” Harris wrote. “In the process, I overlooked government regulations governing the removal of asbestos and broke the law.”
He continued writing “With this agreement and sentencing, I am accepting my responsibility and will pay my debt to society. Again, for anyone impacted by my past decisions in this matter, I apologize. I look forward to taking positive steps moving forward in the next chapter of my life. “

South Point Biomass still owns the lots around the powerhouse and owes Lawrence County $30,692.03 in back property taxes.

Last month, the U.S. EPA began cleaning up the site of asbestos, drums and cylinders from the powerhouse, asbestos piles and contaminated soil from the site around the old powerhouse after the company took out pipes and old equipment for its scrap metal value and left the asbestos on ground in 2008. According to court documents, there is nearly 224,000 square feet of materials containing asbestos. The U.S. EPA has estimated that it will take at least five months for the clean up to be completed.