AES Corporation illegally dumped 100 million pounds of toxic coal as on a pristine beach in the Dominican Republic. After acute health problems came horrible birth defects, Complaint alleges.

Coal Ash Dumping: Criminal Case

In October 2005, the Prosecutor for the Defense of the Environment and Natural Resources initiated a criminal action against Héctor René Ledesma Hernández, Subsecretary of the Environment, and Rosendo Arsenio Borges Rodríguez for violating Dominican Republic Laws No. 64-00 of 2000 and No. 218 of 1984, the Regulation for the Procedure of Evaluating Environmental Impact, the Regulation of the Systems of Environmental Permits and Licenses and Article 9 of the Basel Convention in connection with the dumping of rockash in Samaná. In March 2006, the Supreme Court of Justice declined jurisdiction over the criminal case, but referred the matter to the jurisdiction of San Francisco de Macorís for consideration along with a civil action against the same parties for violating the same laws that had been initiated in September 2004 by the Lawyers' Institute for the Protection of the Environment. In July 2006, the Tribunal of First Instance in San Francisco de Macorís found Ledesma and Borges not guilty. The basis of that decision was the erroneous finding by the court that the rockash was not toxic. In August 2007, the not guilty judgments were affirmed by the Criminal Chamber of the Court of Appeals in San Francisco de Macorís. However, in April 2008, the Supreme Court of Justice reversed the judgment of the Criminal Chamber of the Court of Appeals in San Francisco de Macorís, finding that the rockash was toxic, and referred the case to the Criminal Chamber of the Court of Appeals in Santo Domingo for a new evaluation of the merits of the appeal of the not guilty judgments. In December 2008, the Criminal Chamber of the Court of Appeals in Santo Domingo reversed the not guilty judgments and found that Ledesma had violated Laws No. 64-00 of 2000 and No. 218 of 1984, the domestic Regulations and Article 9 of the Basel Convention, and sentenced him to six months in prison and ordered him to pay a substantial fine. The Court suspended the sentence for six months, imposed house arrest on him, forbade him from leaving the country and required him to perform community service with an organization concerned with environmental protection. In June 2009, the Supreme Court of Justice denied Ledesma's appeal.