State obtains $350,000 settlement in bid-rigging case

RALEIGH -- An environmental consulting company and its chief executive must pay the state $350,434 for plotting to inflate bids to clean up sites contaminated by leaky fuel tanks, the state Attorney General's Office said Monday.

State Business Court Judge Ben F. Tennille ordered CBM Environmental Services of Fort Mill, S.C., and chief executive officer Catherine Ross Bateman of Jacksonville Beach, Fla., to pay the sum, Attorney General Roy Cooper said in a news release. Bateman is a former Charlotte resident.

The order brought to more than $1 million the sum the state has won from defendants since it filed a bid-rigging suit in April 2003. Defendants previously have paid $735,000 to settle allegations that they plotted to fix prices and lie on bids to clean up land around the underground tanks.

Cooper and the state Department of Environment and Natural Resources filed the suit against eight companies and their employees, charging that they conspired to rig bids for a state contract. The state also accused the firms of forming a trade association to either boycott bids for state projects or submit inflated bids. The suit claimed the firms that did submit bids lied by swearing they had not colluded with other firms.

At the time the state filed the suit, six companies and six employees agreed to change their practices, cooperate in the state's investigation, undergo ethics training and pay $480,000 to settle the charges, Cooper said. In December 2004, a seventh company -- Mid-Atlantic Associates of Raleigh -- and three individuals signed agreements and paid the state $255,000.

Leaking petroleum tanks have damaged about 10,000 sites across North Carolina, Cooper said. In 1988, the General Assembly created a trust fund with a portion of gas and kerosene taxes and tank fees to pay cleanup costs.

When tank owners disappear or fail to clean up, the state asks for proposals from environmental consultants, with the trust fund covering the cost. The state also draws on the fund to reimburse private landowners who clean land around leaky tanks.