For a second time, the Circuit Court of Brooke County has refused to allow Pat Mascaro to reopen his Brooke County Compost Facility, located between Weirton and Follansbee, West Virginia. Mascaro, who operates a multi-state business to haul and process New York sewage sludge, composts or landfills the sludge at facilities in Brooke and Wetzel Counties and in Pennsylvania.

In a separate ruling issued yesterday, an Administrative Law Judge for the West Virginia Public Service Commission recommended that Mascaro’s Wetzel County Compost Facility, located near New Martinsville, be closed. Both rulings were sought by Attorney General Darrell McGraw, who has been engaged in numerous legal battles with Mascaro since 1993, when Mascaro’s companies first began importing huge quantities of sewage sludge into West Virginia.

The circuit court order was issued today in a suit filed years ago against Mascaro’s Brooke County facility. In November of 2000, the Court had declared the facility to be a "public nuisance" due to its "foul stench" and issued an injunction permanently closing the facility. Shortly thereafter, Mascaro’s attorneys filed a motion to dissolve the injunction and reopen the facility. In July of 2001, Judge James Mazzone refused to do so, saying that the community’s right to enjoy their property without odors was more important than the loss of jobs associated with the closure. Undeterred, Mascaro immediately filed yet another motion promising to implement "new technologies" that would reduce the odors if he were allowed to reopen. In a 25-page order, Judge Mazzone again refused Mascaro’s request, noting that the "new technologies" could have been implemented before Mazzone made his first ruling, but weren’t. In addition, the evidence showed only that malodors might be reduced, but would not be eliminated.

The Administrative Law Judge’s recommendation was issued yesterday in a case before the Public Service Commission in which Mascaro is seeking a "Certificate of Need" to operate his Wetzel County sewage sludge composting facility. The ruling characterized the operators of the facility as "unfit" and the facility as economically "unviable." Citing Mascaro’s "abysmal" history of environmental violations in West Virginia and Pennsylvania, the ruling states that "the record is devoid of any evidence that the Wetzel County facility is of any use to anybody" except Mascaro’s Pennsylvania Corporation, Solid Waste Services, Inc. The ruling must be approved by the Commission to be effective.