Two former managers at a Nashville waste pre-treatment plant have admitted in federal court that they turned a neighborhood industrial site into a shortcut to the city sewer system, prosecutors say.
David Ray Stark, the plant manager at Allwaste Onsite LLC (doing business as Onsite Environmental), pleaded guilty on Monday, May 18. Former plant supervisor Caleb Warren Randall entered his guilty plea on April 22. Prosecutors say the pair admitted directing employees to discharge untreated industrial waste into Metro Nashville’s sewer system in late 2022 and early 2023, a move officials say damaged infrastructure and put nearby neighborhoods at unnecessary risk.
According to a U.S. Department of Justice press release, Stark and Randall acknowledged in court filings that they ordered plant workers to bypass required treatment steps and interfere with a city monitoring device installed to track what the facility was sending into the sewer. Prosecutors say staff were told to game the system rather than fix the problem.
How Investigators Say The Scheme Worked
Metro Nashville installed a barrel-style sampling device at the plant in January 2023 to keep an eye on discharges, according to local reporting and court documents. Investigators say plant employees repeatedly moved the device’s sampling hose so it would not capture the real waste stream.
As reported by NewsChannel 5, workers allegedly pulled the hose out of the plant’s discharge flume and stuck it into a bucket of cleaner water. That simple trick produced nicer-looking lab results and hid what was actually flowing into the municipal system. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Criminal Investigation Division and the agency’s Office of Inspector General assisted Metro officials on the probe, according to federal filings.
Penalties And Company Fines
The Department of Justice says Stark and Randall each face up to five years in prison and fines of up to $250,000. Randall is scheduled to be sentenced on Aug. 4, with Stark to follow on Aug. 19.
The company itself has already taken a financial hit. Last year, Onsite Environmental pleaded guilty and was ordered to pay $512,000. Metro Nashville also recouped more than $80,000 in sewer maintenance costs and about $299,576 in unpaid surcharges tied to the illicit bypassing of treatment systems.
Why This Matters For Nashville
Municipal sewer systems are built to handle household sewage, not straight industrial waste. When untreated effluent gets in, it can corrode pipes, disrupt treatment at downstream plants and increase public-health risks for the communities that rely on that infrastructure.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s National Pretreatment Program gives cities and utilities the power to set local limits and require industrial users to strip out harmful pollutants before sending anything to a public treatment plant. Violations are not just technical foul-ups. They can result in civil penalties and, in more serious cases like this one, criminal charges.
Charges And What Comes Next
Federal court documents charge Stark and Randall with conspiracy to defraud the EPA and violations of the Clean Water Act. They are also accused of tampering with monitoring equipment to conceal the discharges, according to WSMV.
Prosecutors say the case was built with help from Metro Nashville officials and federal investigators, and the summer sentencing hearings will determine how the courts weigh the role of the two managers against the earlier corporate plea and fine.
Federal officials have cast the prosecutions as a warning shot that willful attempts to hide untreated discharges will draw felony charges. The upcoming hearings will be the next key moment as the government presses for punishment that, in its view, reflects the harm to the city’s sewer system and the surrounding community.
