After Freedom Industries leaked chemicals into 300,000 people’s drinking water in Charleston last year, a company run by ex-Freedom employees is facing environmental violations a few towns away, in Nitro.
State regulators have cited the new firm, Lexycon, eight times since August. Infractions include pouring chemicals without a permit, lacking proper “last-resort” walls to contain spills, and hosting tanker-trailers of unknown chemicals, among others.
Former Freedom executive Dennis Farrell, who faces up to three years in prison on pollution charges in the Elk River spill, consults for Lexycon.
Robert Reynolds, an ex-Freedom consultant also charged in the spill, had also consulted for Lexycon.
Lexycon president Kevin Skiles owned 5 percent of Freedom’s shares and was a Freedom research and technology official.
The facility was run by Freedom, then sold to Lexycon in May during Freedom’s bankruptcy proceedings.