Barletta Heavy Inc. is denying criminal wrongdoing in connection with dirt used at a Rhode Island highway construction site, and says the charges brought by Attorney General Peter Neronha are “baseless, both legally and factually.”
“Barletta intends to fight these charges vigorously and is confident that it will prevail and restore its impeccable reputation once the facts are fully and accurately presented in court,” the Massachusetts company said in a statement.
Neronha on Wednesday announced charges that Barletta knowingly dumped “solid waste” — that is, contaminated dirt that didn't meet certain environmental standards — at the massive Route 6-Route 10 interchange project in Providence, where Barletta was lead contractor.
Barletta and a former employee are now charged with illegally operating a solid waste facility, illegally dumping solid waste, and providing a false document to a state official.
Barletta said it would beat the new state-level criminal charges by showing that the dirt it trucked in was not solid waste.
Soil and stone used at the job “was the same in composition and makeup as the urban soil already present in, around and under the 6-10 highway for generations,” Barletta said. It also claimed that the R.I. Dept. of Environmental Management had approved the reuse of existing urban fill at the job.
Barletta added that because the the soil in question was later trucked away and put to use as landfill cover in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, that it never...
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