MOUNT VERNON — A former Mount Vernon wastewater treatment plant operator has been charged with record tampering, according to a recent indictment.
William Cordle, 42, of Mount Vernon, was indicted Monday with eight counts of tampering with records, all third-degree felonies, by a Knox County grand jury.
According to the indictment, Cordle tampered with records at Mount Vernon’s Wastewater Treatment plant with “the purpose to defraud or knowing he was facilitating a fraud, did falsify, destroy, remove, conceal, alter, deface or mutilate a writing, computer software, data, computer data or record (…) kept for the purpose of Environmental Protection Agency compliance.”
The indictment states the tampering took place from July 25 to Aug. 3.
The indictment doesn’t detail what records were tampered with, though Mount Vernon Safety Service Director Tanner Salyers provided context.
Employee was terminated Aug. 6
The daily tests that were falsified measured ammonia, solids, PH levels and daily composite samples, Salyers said via text message.
“Our annual bio-essays were also not collected properly which could have affected our national pollutant discharge elimination system permit,” Salyers said.
Also, the permit allows the city to operate its wastewater plant from the Ohio EPA, Salyers said.
“We cooperated with the EPA and communicated with monitoring the tests related to these reports and were able to avoid escalating the situation,” Salyers said.
“The city’s prompt response went a long way in preserving our relationship and any sort of repercussions.”
Salyers said the records mentioned in the indictment are “critical for the health and well-being of our citizens.
“We take this seriously and we have a zero-tolerance policy for anyone who would break these rules and violate the public trust.”
Cordle was terminated Aug. 6, Salyers said, after working about a decade with the city.
“When we found (out) it was happening, we terminated the employee immediately,” Salyers said.
“Detectives with the Mount Vernon Police Department collected the evidence and provided the report to the county prosecutor’s office and we let the law take it from there.”