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Two men were charged Tuesday after Utah officials say they dumped oily wastewater into a northeastern Utah pond on multiple occasions. “The sheer quantity of the pollution was beyond anything I’ve ever seen as an investigator,” said Brent Kasza, a special agent for the Utah Trust Lands Administration . The state agency said the wastewater came from an oilfield in Bear River, Wyo.
, near the state line with Utah. Two contractors — Braden Lance and Jeremy Oliver — were hired to take the waste to a disposal facility in LaBarge, Wyo., over 100 miles from Bear River.
Instead, Lance and Oliver dumped the wastewater into a small pond near Woodruff, Utah, about 13 miles from the Bear River oilfield — a much shorter distance away. Kasza said the contractors “were pocketing the money provided for their expenses they didn’t incur.” Lance and Oliver were both charged with four third-degree felony counts of “unlawful discharge of pollutants,” case records show.
Their initial appearance in the Rich County Justice Court is set for April 22. The dumped wastewater contained oil, hydraulic fluid, grease, sand and mud, the state agency said in a press release, which are all common contaminants in wastewater produced from oil drilling. The state said it received a tip about the illegal dumping in February 2024.
When Kasza first visited the “pond-like area” in Rich County, he smelled a “strong chemical odor” and saw that surrounding plants “had turned black and died,” the agency said. The company that owns the oilfield in Bear River was not aware of the dumping, according to the release. A spokesperson for the state agency said it is not naming the company because the company has not been charged in this case.
“Discharging pollutants near a small, rural town in Utah is unconscionable,” said Michelle E. McConkie, director of the Trust Lands Administration, in a statement. “This illegal activity appears to have caused damage to the immediate environment and also has the potential to cause harm to the local community.
” The Trust Lands Administration manages 3.3 million acres of land across Utah to generate revenue for institutions like public schools and hospitals..
