The co-owner of a Memphis water-testing consulting firm must pay a six-figure fine after pleading guilty to fabricating water-quality results for state environmental permits.
DiAne Gordon, 61, of Memphis, was the co-owner and CEO of Environmental Compliance and Testing (ECT), according to the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Tennessee. The company was an environmental consulting firm and offered sampling and testing of stormwater, process water (from manufacturing activities, for example), and wastewater.
The company was hired, largely by concrete companies, to analyze water samples to meet permit requirements in the federal Clean Water Act. Gordon’s firm would, then, send those samples to environmental testing laboratories. The results were put in lab reports and submitted to the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality and the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation to satisfy permit requirements.
Court papers say Gordon fabricated the results and the reports. She also forged documents from a reputable testing laboratory. Gordon would then bill her clients for the sampling and analysis.
Law enforcement and regulators found that Gordon created, submitted, or caused to be submitted at least 405 false lab reports and other forms from her Memphis company since 2017.
For this, Gordon will pay $201,388.88 in restitution to the victims of her crime. She is scheduled to be sentenced in March and faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison.
“By fabricating these reports, Gordon betrayed her position of trust and violated her responsibility to provide information critical to evaluating water quality for residents in Tennessee and Mississippi,” said Assistant Attorney General Todd Kim of the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division. “This prosecution shows the value of state and federal partnerships in investigating and prosecuting fraud and upholding the nation’s environmental laws for the good of public health.”
Gordon pleaded guilty to knowingly and willfully making and using false writings and documents in a matter within the jurisdiction of the Environmental Protection Agency.
