May 1, 2015 3 min read

A South Franklin Township man was sentenced to 16 years of probation after pleading guilty to causing oil to be dumped into a pond on a South Franklin Township farm owned by Consol Energy in 2013.

Robert Joseph Sparks, 24, of 1610 S Bridge Road, pleaded guilty April 23 before Washington County Common Pleas Judge John F. DiSalle to two counts of unlawful conduct and one count each of attempted theft and criminal mischief.

Sparks was charged by the state attorney general’s office with violating rules and regulation to protect water supplies, unlawful conduct, theft and criminal mischief for the May 15, 2013, incident at Leatherwood Farm, 605 Bethel Church Road, South Franklin.

Consol leases the home and barn to Brian Crispin. Investigators said Sparks was dating Crispin’s daughter and sometimes stayed at the home.

Trooper Ryan Deems, who responded once the incident was reported, saw a rope that was used to pull a large metal tank from the ground. He also saw oil on the ground where the tank once stood. When the tank was removed, it was placed in the pond and oil that remained spilled into the water.

The tank was eventually found near shrubbery. It was cut in half and set on fire.

The Washington County Hazardous Materials Team set up a boom to prevent oil from going any further. The one-acre pond on the property feeds into an unnamed tributary of Ten Mile Creek.

Investigators said there was one to two inches of oil floating on the surface of the pond. The state Department of Environmental Protection and Consol made an agreement to have the site cleaned.

Sparks told investigators he noticed the tank in the pond and pulled it from the water. In a subsequent interview, Sparks told the trooper that since the tank was going to rust into the ground, he did not see the harm in cutting it up for scrap. He also admitted to the trooper he knew there was oil in the tank. A representative of Consol told investigators the tank was functional and was valued at $1,200.

In addition to the probation sentence, Sparks was ordered to pay a $6,000 fine and $86,817 in restitution to Leatherwood Inc.