Tag: City of Bridgeport

Bridgeport Seeks Federal Drug Unit for Northern W.Va.

Bridgeport’s City Council is seeking a federal narcotics investigation unit for the Northern District of West Virginia.

The Exponent Telegram reports that the council unanimously approved a resolution this week asking the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration to assign a tactical diversion squad to the region.

Councilman and former DEA agent Lowell J. Maxey says the unit would focus on prescription drugs. That would give the Greater Harrison County Drug and Violent Crimes Task Force more time to investigate other drugs, such as heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine

Mayor Bob Greer says he plans to talk to other northern West Virginia mayors about adopting similar resolutions during a West Virginia Municipal League conference next week.

Bridgeport Mayor Resigns Ahead of Plea Hearing

  Bridgeport Mayor Mario Blount has resigned ahead of a plea hearing on federal drug charges.

Blount announced his resignation Monday night at a City Council meeting. He apologized for not meeting what he called the standards that citizens expect from him as mayor.

Federal agents arrested Blount in June. He’s charged with conspiracy to possess and distribute schedule II controlled substances, distribution of oxymorphone and false or fraudulent material omission.

Blount is scheduled to appear in U.S. District Court in Clarksburg for a plea hearing on Friday. Last week, he filed for Chapter 7 personal bankruptcy.

Recorder Robert Greer will serve as acting mayor until the council holds a special meeting next week to replace Blount.

Bridgeport Mayor Indicted on Federal Drug Charges

Bridgeport Mayor Mario Blount has been indicted on federal drug charges. U.S. Attorney William J. Ihlenfeld II says the 51-year-old Blount was arrested Tuesday.

Blount is charged with conspiracy to possess and distribute schedule II controlled substances, distribution of oxycodone and failure to report the filling of a prescription.
 
The mayor, who is the owner of multiple Best Care Pharmacies,  is accused of illegally dispensing more than 11,000 oxycodone and oxymorphone pills over a period of about three years.
 
The grand jury also charged two other people with conspiring with Blount.

Messages left at his Bridgeport home were not returned.
 

DEP Halts Drilling Waste Disposal in Bridgeport

West Virginia regulators want to know how drilling sludge rejected by a landfill in Pennsylvania wound up in a landfill in Bridgeport.

Department of Environmental Protection spokeswoman Kelley Gillenwater says the agency ordered the Meadowfill Landfill to stop accepting the sludge until the agency determines why the Arden Landfill in Chartiers, Pennsylvania, rejected it.
 
The sludge came from a Range Resources natural gas drilling operation in Pennsylvania.
 
Range Resources spokesman Matt Pitzarella says the Pennsylvania landfill found  the waste contained radioactive materials slightly above background levels. He says the levels weren’t unsafe.
 
Waste Management owns both landfills.
 
Waste Management spokeswoman Lisa Kardell says a new West Virginia law requiring radiation monitoring of drilling waste at landfills doesn’t go into effect until Jan. 1, 2015, allowing the Bridgeport site to collect the waste.
 

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