THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, October 23, 1996 TAG: 9610230474
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY SCOTT HARPER, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: 75 lines
Terry Lynn Rettig, the former sewage plant manager for Smithfield Foods Inc., pleaded guilty Tuesday in federal court to 23 counts of dumping pollutants into local waters and then lying about it on state reports.
In one instance, in 1994, Rettig threw records into a trash bin at Smithfield Foods. He then told visiting state inspectors that the papers - which detailed what contaminants were flowing into the Pagan River from two company sewage plants handling hog wastes - had been lost.
The Pagan River is a small tributary of the James River and the Chesapeake Bay. Located downhill from slaughterhouses in Isle of Wight County, the Pagan has been closed to shellfish harvesting since 1970 due to high traces of bacteria associated with animal wastes.
Rettig, 46, of Virginia Beach, faces a maximum penalty of 54 years in prison and a $5.75 million fine when he is sentenced Jan. 16, according to the U.S. Department of Justice, which is prosecuting the case.
Rettig will be sentenced by a different judge. U.S. District Judge J. Calvitt Clarke Jr., midway through the proceedings Tuesday, told lawyers that he will excuse himself from the case because his wife may own stock in Smithfield Foods, one of the largest pork processors on the East Coast.
That was the second surprise of the day. The first was Rettig's guilty plea to all 23 charges contained in a federal grand jury indictment against him.
Just last month, Rettig pleaded not guilty to the sweeping indictment, which portrayed him as a rogue polluter who defied federal clean-water laws and lied to state inspectors to protect his clients. A jury trial had been set for next month.
Rettig and his court-appointed attorney, Charles R. Burke, declined to discuss their turnabout Tuesday, saying only that they may comment on the case ``some other time.''
Burke has said the government once offered Rettig a plea bargain. But Harvey Bryant, an assistant U.S. attorney in Norfolk, said the guilty plea Tuesday had nothing to do with an agreement.
``They came to us with this,'' Bryant said.
In addition to Smithfield Foods, Rettig operated sewage plants for the town of Surry in Surry County, the Twin Ponds Mobile Home Park in Suffolk and the Bowers Hill Econo Travel, according to federal lawyers.
Rettig, a 1979 Old Dominion University graduate and former public employee, answered ``yes, sir'' and ``yes, I understand'' to a long list of charges against him as read by Judge Clarke and later by John Smeltzer, a Justice Department trial lawyer.
Smeltzer said that at each plant operated by Rettig, at varying times between 1991 and 1994, he reported to the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality that the plants were operating in compliance with all pollution laws.
However, some plants had not been tested for compliance, and others proved to be discharging excessive wastes, Smeltzer said.
In February 1992, for example, Rettig reported that one plant at Smithfield Foods released sewage containing 110 colonies of fecal coliform, a bacteria that can carry disease. The state limit is 400 colonies.
In reality, Smeltzer said, the plant released 16,000 colonies and violated its state pollution permit for 16 days that month.
The government was able to prove these and other charges by recovering records and reports that had been stuffed inside Rettig's desk at Smithfield Foods, Smeltzer said.
Rettig was shifted to a new job inside Smithfield Foods after state and federal investigators started asking questions and confiscating records in 1994. He was asked to resign from the company the next year.
Smithfield Foods is not charged with any criminal violations of environmental laws, but it faces separate civil lawsuits from the Department of Justice and the state of Virginia for past pollution problems. ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photo]
MARTIN SMITH-RODDEN
The Virginian-Pilot
Terry Lynn Rettig, 46, could be sent to prison for up to 54 years
and fined $5.75 million.
KEYWORDS: ENVIRONMENT POLLUTION SMITHFIELD FOODS GUILTY
PLEA by CNB