Former President of Texas Company Charged ‪with Environmental Violations in Employee Deaths

Texas-based Port Arthur Chemical and Environmental Services, LLC (PACES) and its former president, Matthew Lawrence Bowman, have been charged with conspiracy to illegally transport hazardous materials, resulting in the deaths of two employees, announced John M. Bales, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Texas, and Ignacia S. Moreno, assistant attorney general of the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division.

‪The indictment describes a scheme in which hazardous materials were transported illegally with false documents and without placards; and where workers were not properly protected from exposure to hazardous gases. The exposure resulted in the deaths of two employees, who were truck drivers, at the PACES facility on December 18, 2008 and April 14, 2009. Both deaths are attributed to exposure to hydrogen sulfide.

‪‪‪A grand jury indictment is not evidence of guilt. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.