Ray Caldwell's wife gets license to pump septic

Cowlitz County issued a septic pumpers license to Joanne Caldwell last week, just a month after it revoked the pumpers license of her husband, All-Out Sewer & Drain owner Ray Caldwell, following his conviction of 33 federal felonies.

I cant bar her from having a license since there is no evidence that she participated in any crime, county Environmental Health Manager Chris Bischoff said Thursday.

Ray Caldwell was convicted Dec. 16 in U.S. District Court of illegally dumping into the city of Longviews sewer system the septage waste All-Out Sewer collected from customers. A federal judge found Caldwell guilty on all 33 counts: 25 felony counts of violating the federal Clean Water Act, six counts of mail fraud and two counts of making false statements.

In addition to the illegal dumping, Caldwell had been accused of grossly underreporting the amount of septage he collected from customers and pocketing the 6-cent-per-gallon disposal surcharge instead of giving it to the county.

The county notified Caldwell in January that it was pulling his license. He has appealed the decision.

Meanwhile, county officials want to take a more active role in regulating septic business and enforcing the rules to prevent a similar situation from occurring, Bischoff said.

When the county first wrote its septic business regulations, we never conceived of a situation like that surrounding All-Out, Bischoff said. So we were sort of hamstrung by the way the rules were written.

The county is looking at other jurisdictions that have more active enforcement practices and meeting with local septic professionals about adopting additional oversight, he said.

Some of them really want a lot (of oversight) and others dont want much, Bischoff said, adding that he didnt want to be oppressive.

However, he said, Were not even inspecting their sites or really auditing their records, and maybe those are some things we want to do.

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Ray Caldwell's wife gets license to pump septic