The felony environmental charges filed last month against the owners of Capital Environmental Risk Transfer Alliance (CERTA) and the business itself for the 2022 release of hydraulic fluid into Connoquenessing Creek are an encouraging sign.

CERTA was hired in the autumn of 2022 to demolish the former AK Steel Plant #2. An equipment leak allowed large amounts of hydraulic fluid, which was being used to try to clean the plant floor, to seep into a floor drain, then into nearby Connoquenessing Creek.

An estimated eight-and-a-half miles of the watershed were contaminated.

It’s not whether CERTA co-owners Kris Bamberger, of Florida, and Jacob Bamberger deliberately polluted the nearby creek that dictates if the charges are appropriate. Regardless of how the contaminant entered the creek, it could have caused a lot of damaged.

The release of dangerous chemicals can have a domino effect on the environment.

In the case of hydraulic fluid, the highly refined liquid has toxic chemical additives, such as zinc, which can poison aquatic food chains, kill soil microbes and linger in the ecosystems for an extended time.

CERTA and its owners ought to face the consequences for the actions at the AK Steel Plant #2, not because they are willful polluters or bad people, but to send a message that the waterways we all use and hold in common should not be marred by careless actions.

— EF