The medical waste was improperly stored and transported by non-licensed companies.
Two Missouri men were ordered to pay a total of $20,000 in civil damages for storing 75 containers of hazardous medical waste at a Columbia home.
Majed El-Dweik, 40, of Columbia was ordered by the 13th Circuit Court to pay $5,000 to the state for storing the containers of waste at his former residence at 2804 Oakland Gravel Road and having the waste transported illegally to Arkansas.
In 2003, El-Dweik pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges related to the incident and served three years of probation.
The court also ordered Moumen Kuziez, 50, of Ballwin to pay $15,000 in damages to the state for violating waste laws.
Kuziez was president of M.W.A. Enterprise LLC, which transported the medical waste. El-Dweik was a sales associate for the company.
The judgement also ordered M.W.A. to pay $24,000 in damages for illegally transporting infectious waste.
The damages were reached in an agreement by both parties, said Scott Holste, spokesman for the attorney general’s office.
In October 2002, the Missouri Department of Natural Resources received a complaint that waste was being stored at El-Dweik’s home, according to the lawsuit filed by Attorney General Jay Nixon.
Holste said he did not know how the complaint originated.
The department informed El-Dweik and Kuziez that the waste had to be removed and transported by a licensed company.
The department inspectors returned two days later to find the containers removed, the lawsuit said.
Kuziez said that a driver from either M.W.A. or another company named in the lawsuit, Medical Waste Management Inc, had removed the waste and driven it to Arkansas where it was incinerated.
“It was removed, but not through a licensed waste holder,” Holste said.
M.W.A. was never licensed to carry infectious waste and Medical Waste Management lost its licensing in 2001, the lawsuit said.
Both M.W.A. and Medical Waste Management illegally transported waste in Missouri on numerous other occasions, according to the lawsuit.
The judge also ordered Wally El-Beck of Springfield, Ill., president of Medical Waste Management, to pay $227,000 to the state. The judgement against Medical Waste Management also required the company to pay $227,000, bringing the total judgment to $454,000.
Holste said that the companies were just never licensed to perform the waste removal services they offered.
“Certainly, it never should’ve been stored at a residence in the first place,” he said.