A Northampton County man is headed for trial, following his arrest last year for the alleged illegal dumping 23,455 tons of construction and demolition waste across four Pennsylvania counties.

Michael Stine, accused of illegal dumping, covers his face Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2017, outside district court in Lansford, Pennsylvania, after waiving his right to a preliminary hearing. On the left is his attorney, Jim Donovan. (Kurt Bresswein | For lehighvalleylive.com) 

Michael L. Stine, 45, of the 10000 block of Gravel Hill Road in Lower Mount Bethel Township, waived his right to a preliminary hearing Wednesday afternoon in Lansford, Carbon County, where all of the cases are consolidated.

He faces five felony counts of criminal mischief and seven counts of misdemeanor unlawful conduct. Authorities withdrew four additional counts of unlawful conduct.

The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection sent Dean Ritter, its Northeast chief of waste management compliance monitoring and enforcement, to testify Wednesday, and the Pennsylvania Attorney General's Office had Senior Deputy Attorney General Brian Coffey was present to prosecute the case.

Recycling mogul illegally dumped construction debris, state says

A preliminary hearing would have given the presiding district judge, Casimir Kosciolek, an opportunity to determine whether there is sufficient evidence to send the case to trial.

Instead, the next step in the case is for Stine to appear for a pre-trial conference scheduled March 31 at the Carbon County Courthouse in Jim Thorpe. Charges were filed in the investigation in August 2016.

Stine and his attorney, Willow Grove, Pennsylvania-based Jim Donovan, declined to comment, as did Coffey.

Also present for the hearing were victims in the case, including representatives of Bowmanstown Borough in Carbon County, and John Tallarico and Armando Villani, owners of a recycling facility in Freemansburg.

Tallarico and Villani's property at 1600 Freemansburg Ave. was, by far, the largest illegal dump site, court records say. Authorities estimated the cost of removal at $840,000 for the 15,000 tons of debris dumped on the site between December 2013 and May 2014, according to court records.

Stine had leased space at the Freemansburg Avenue property for his company, MS Recycling. He said he'd be bringing in clean wood, such as pallets, to grind up as fuel for biomass-electricity generation, court records say. "A large amount of plastic flowerpots" in one load hauled to the site concerned Villani, who closed the property to Stine because of what he believed was illegal trash, records say.

Victims of illegal dumping, allegedly perpetrated by Michael Stine, gather with counsel and state enforcement officials Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2017, outside district court in Lansford, Pennsylvania, after Stine waived his right to a preliminary hearing. (Kurt Bresswein | For lehighvalleylive.com) 

Stine would unlock the gate and continue dumping loads of waste at night, Villani reportedly told investigators.

All told, state investigators estimated the cost at about $1.35 million to remove the debris allegedly dumped by Stine across the sites.

Investigators described the illegal loads, and estimated removal costs at $56 a ton, as follows:

40 tons ($7,574 removal cost) at Business Adventure Associates, Route 309 and 80 in McAdoo, Kline Township, Schuylkill County.

29 tons ($6,644 removal cost) at Torco Supply, Riverview Road, East Penn Township, Carbon County.

38 tons ($6,699 removal cost) at Snyder Tire, 103 E. Penn St. off Route 443, Lehighton, Carbon County.

60 tons ($11,152 removal cost) at George Szacska's property, 1548 Smithlane Road, Lehighton, Carbon County.

70 tons ($14,182 removal cost) on Bowmanstown Borough property, Route 895, East Penn Township, Carbon County.

18 tons ($4,799 removal cost) at Raymond Hartman's house, 335 Sawmill Road, Franklin Township, Carbon County

15,000 tons ($840,000 removal cost) at 1600 Freemansburg Ave., Freemansburg, Northampton County.

8,200 tons ($459,200 removal cost) at A Plus Power Wash, 15 S. Keyser St., Taylor, Lackawanna County.

Stine and his father, Clayton Stine, owned a tree-stump-grinding business on Gravel Hill Road in Lower Mount Bethel Township that caught fire in 1999 and burned for months.

Kurt Bresswein may be reached at kbresswein@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @KurtBresswein. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.

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