William Hrazanek, the embattled owner of multiple Catskills junkyards, was arrested on Tuesday, Sept. 23 in connection with a chemical spill on Wittenberg Road in the Ulster County hamlet of Mount Tremper last year.
Left: William Hrazanek in a DEC mugshot.
The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation charged 68-year-old Hrazanek with two felonies, according to Peter Constantakes, a DEC spokesman, in an email to the Watershed Post.
The charges were endangering public health, safety and the environment in the 2nd and 3rd degree and criminal mischief.
Hrazanek was arraigned on Sept. 23 before Shandaken Town Justice Thomas Crucet and was released on his own recognizance that same day, according to Constantakes.
Reached via telephone today, Hrazanek had no comment about the arrest.
The spill in Mount Tremper has been under investigation since June 13, 2013. Neighbors had noticed strong chemical fumes coming from 1420 Wittenberg Road for about a week.
"All of a sudden, one day, there was this really strong smell," Joshua Luborsky, a realtor who lives down the street from the spill site, told the Watershed Post last year. "It smelled like acetone. Something really chemical-ey. As soon as you got that section of the road, you could smell it. It was intense."
First responders from multiple agencies, including the DEC and the DEP, arrived on the scene on June 13 to investigate. One police officer became light-headed from the fumes, according to a New York City Department of Environmental Protection police report.
According to the police report, two witnesses told police that they had seen vehicles coming and going on the property. One said he had seen young men who worked for William Hrazanek, while another said he had seen cans and barrels in one of the vehicles.
Preliminary tests conducted on the substance spilled at the site found "glyoxalin," a gasoline additive, as well as other chemicals, according to the police report. The DEC later identified the spill substance as waste gasoline.
An independent contractor conducted a large environmental cleanup at the site last year. Citing the fact that its investigation is ongoing, a DEC spokeswoman refused to release more information about the extent of the spill today.
The Mount Tremper property was the longtime home of Hrazanek's family, and is now technically owned by a former girlfriend of Hrazanek's.
Last week's arrest is the second time that Hrazanek has been charged with environmental violations in 2014. In February, the DEC charged him with eight misdemeanors and three violations after finding leaky drums of oil and piles of tires on three of his Delaware County junkyards during a raid in 2013.
One of Hrazanek's junkyard properties, the former VW Parts building at 717 Wagner Avenue in Fleischmanns, burned down on August 26.
Steve Hood, the director of Delaware County Emergency Services, told the Watershed Post in an email today that the fire was an accident caused by demolition workers who were removing items from the building:
The final cause of the fire at the VW Parts building was determined to be accidental in nature, caused by workers from Euro-Nuts using a demolition saw to cut heavy pipes. The saw created sparks which went down into the wall on the side of the building next to the school.
That property and Hrazanek's warehouse at 102 Depot Street in Fleischmanns, both of which allegedly had environmental violations, are in the process of being purchased with federal with federal disaster funds as part of a Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) buyout program.
