T-L File Photo The Austin Master Services fracking waste recycling facility in Martins Ferry.

ST. CLAIRSVILLE — A Martins Ferry company must pay more than $34 million in penalties to the state of Ohio for storing a potentially dangerous overabundance of oil and gas waste on their property while profiting financially.

Belmont County Common Pleas Court Judge John Vavra has ruled that Austin Master Services violated laws for keeping environmental waste for a total of 2,818 days, and he fined them $10,000 a day for the infraction. Total penalties came to $28,180,000

The amount was on top of $6,208,059 already assessed to Austin Master by the state after the Ohio Department of Natural Services provided a clean up of the property. That brings total fines on the company to $34,388,059.

The ruling was filed with the Belmont County Clerk’s Office on Tuesday, Jan. 13. A certified check for the amount must be paid to the Ohio Treasurer’s Office within 30 days of that date, according to the ruling.

“Defendants presented no evidence to prove that a civil penalty of $28,180,000, or of any amount, would be ruinous or otherwise disabling,” the ruling states.

The ruling explains that on Feb. 7, 2024, workers from the Division of Oil and Gas Resources Management of the ODNR conducted a routine inspection at the AMS facility in Martins Ferry, and “found multiple violations of Ohio’s oil and gas statutes and rules.”

AMS was directed to remove waste “sufficient to return to its primary containment storage capacity” by March 15, 2024.

Instead of complying with the notice, AMS “made the situation significantly worse,” according to the ruling. On March 14, 2014, ODNR workers inspectors returned and discovered additional piles of waste outside designated areas.

“Sludge and liquids covered a majority of the facility floor,” the ruling states. “Much of the solid and liquid waste was radioactive in nature.

“AMS employees and ODNR inspectors alike were exposed to unsafe levels of radiation. The waste was so expansive and uncontrolled that it rendered useless the employees’ ‘boot wash area,’ which was a key component of AMS’s required Radiation Protection Program. Trucks could not drive through the facility without coming into contact with the uncontained waste, which created a risk that the waste could be transported outside of the facility.”

The AMS plant is in close proximity to the Ohio River and a Martins Ferry water supply well, the ruling noted.

“Without state intervention, defendants would have likely stockpiled even more waste,” it stated.

The ruling added that Brad Domitrovitsch, the CEO of parent corporation AEPT, controlled the finances at AMS and its subsidiaries. In 2023 and 2024, he allegedly “commingled funds and diverted AMS’s revenue to support both himself and other subsidiaries under the AEPT umbrella,” according to the ruling.

“The waste accumulation in the facility was a direct result of AEPT’s and Mr. Domitrovitsch’s (alleged) repeated failure to pay the bills of AMS’s waste disposal vendors,” it stated.