Agents with the State Attorney General’s Environmental Crimes Section at the site of the former Huber Breaker in Ashley in 2017. Times Leader file photo
Huber Breaker in 2006. Times Leader file photo
WILKES-BARRE — The former owner who tore down the Huber Breaker in Ashley was sentenced to one year probation after pleading guilty to unlawful conduct by storing and dumping asbestos materials throughout the 25-acre property.
Pasquale J. Scalleat, 48, owner of Paselo Logistics LLC, was charged by the Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General’s Environmental Crimes Section in April for ignoring numerous state Department of Environmental Protection orders and a Luzerne County judge’s order to properly dispose containers filled with asbestos materials and liquids from 2014 through 2018, according to court records.
Paselo Logistics LLC was formed by Scalleat and another person in 2012 and purchased the Huber Breaker site in 2013, razing the breaker and other buildings for scrap metal in 2014.
Court records say Paselo Logistics failed to notify DEP prior to the start of demolishing buildings at the site as most of the buildings contained asbestos. When the buildings were razed, it released “fugitive emissions” that either leaked into the ground or released into the air, court records say.
DEP conducted numerous on-site inspections finding containers filled with asbestos that were stored in a maintenance garage. DEP advised Paselo Logistics to dispose of the asbestos-filled containers from 2014 through 2018 but the containers were moved within the property and not properly disposed as ordered, according to court records.
A former employee at the site reportedly was instructed to dump asbestos materials into a 1,000-gallon above ground water tank in an attempt to hide the hazardous substance, but it leaked into the ground during rain storms as the drain cap was removed.
Fluid from power transformers at the site was poured into buckets and then dumped into an air shaft and an abandoned mine shaft on the property, court records say.
Scalleat pleaded guilty to two counts of unlawful conduct before Luzerne County President Judge Michael T. Vough, who sentenced him to one year probation.
A third count of unlawful conduct and a count of unauthorized process of hazardous materials were withdrawn against Scalleat.
The 25-acre Huber Breaker site is now owned by Ashley Complex, LLC.
Clean-up efforts are currently underway at the property where a fence has recently been erected and heavy machinery has been observed working at the site.
Efforts to turn the Huber Breaker into a museum failed over the decades.