Wastewater workers plead guilty to Ocoee River discharge

A judge Monday sentenced Randy David Adcock, supervisor of the Coppertown Utilities Basin Water District in Turtletown, to two years probation and a $1,500 fine. Adcock was also ordered to surrender his water treatment operator license.

Ricky Cochran, an employee, received a two-year suspended sentence and was fined $750.

The men said they discharged untreated sewage multiple times, at night, into the Walkertown Branch tributary of the river using a pipe they installed instead of transporting the untreated sewage to a land disposal site.

District Attorney Jerry Estes said the men’s actions posed serious risks to public health and the local economy. The river was the site of the whitewater competition during the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta.