Attorney General Anthony G. Brown today announced the guilty plea of Larry A. Gross, 46, of Waldorf, Maryland, for violations of Maryland environmental laws regarding the discharge of diesel fuel.
On November 6, 2024, Mr. Gross pleaded guilty before the Honorable Stacy W. McCormack of the Circuit Court for Anne Arundel County to two counts of the unlawful discharge of oil, specifically diesel fuel. He was sentenced to one year of incarceration, suspending all but 60 days, to be served in the Anne Arundel County Detention Center. Judge McCormack also ordered that Mr. Gross pay a fine of $10,000 to be paid to the Maryland Oil Disaster Containment, Clean Up, and Contingency Fund. He was also placed on five years of supervised probation.
The investigation, led by the Maryland Office of the Attorney General’s Environment and Natural Resources Crime Unit (ENRCU) and the Maryland Department of the Environment
(MDE), found that Mr. Gross had illegally discharged approximately 5,342 gallons of diesel fuel between three locations in Anne Arundel County, Maryland.
The investigation revealed that Mr. Gross was the principal operator of H&M Truckin, LLC, and was also a contract employee of M Pittman Enterprises (MPE), a fuel distribution company headquartered in Manassas, Virginia.
On October 3, 2023, while driving a tanker truck leased from MPE, Mr. Gross picked up a load of approximately 7,500 gallons of diesel at the Motiva fuel terminal, located at 3443 Fairfield
Road, Baltimore City, Maryland. In the early morning hours of October 4, 2023, Mr. Gross delivered 2,159 gallons of diesel to a Quarles fuel depot in Elkridge, Maryland. Like other tanker truck drivers, Mr. Gross was paid by the number of pickup fuel loads and not the number of deliveries.
Tanker trucks cannot carry both diesel fuel and gasoline at the same time. If a tanker truck driver, like Mr. Gross, has leftover diesel fuel in the tanker after a delivery, it has to be completely emptied before it can be filled with gasoline, and vice versa. Mr. Gross proceeded to illegally discharge the remaining 5,342 gallons of diesel fuel.
On October 4, 2023, at approximately 2:01 a.m., Mr. Gross dumped diesel fuel on the shoulder of Route 10 in Brooklyn Park, Anne Arundel County. Less than an hour later, at approximately 2:56 a.m., Mr. Gross stopped the truck in the 500 block of Digiulian Boulevard, Glen Burnie, Anne Arundel County, and illegally dumped more diesel fuel. Dash camera video from the truck shows diesel fuel running down the back toward the front of the truck. The discharged diesel fuel was then captured at 3:01 a.m. on surveillance video flowing down the roadway.
Mr. Gross then drove directly through the discharge as he turned the tanker truck around in a cul-de-sac and left the area. The gradient of the road slopes down to a storm drain at the end of the cul-de-sac. The storm drain empties into a local sediment pond.
Soon thereafter, at approximately 3:13 a.m., Mr. Gross returned to the shoulder of Route 10 in Brooklyn Park and discharged even more diesel fuel. At approximately 3:43 a.m., Mr. Gross—whose truck was now empty due to his illegal discharge of over five thousand gallons of diesel fuel—returned to the Motiva fuel terminal in Baltimore City and loaded 8,200 gallons of gasoline onto his truck.
Later that day, MDE’s Emergency Response Division responded to the 500 block of Digiulian Boulevard in Glen Burnie to investigate a diesel fuel discharge. The field inspection determined that the discharged fuel ran along the side of Digiulian Boulevard, traveled 250 yards downhill in the direction of the cul-de-sac, entered the storm drain, flowed underneath the Quarles gas station and discharged into a local sediment pond, as seen in the map below. It was determined that Mr. Gross dumped approximately 1,000 gallons of diesel fuel along Digiulian Boulevard.
On or about October 15, 2023, a field inspection determined that the discharged fuel ran along the roadway, through a vegetated drainage ditch, into a storm water culvert inlet, then migrated beneath Route 10 north, impacting another drainage ditch, as seen in the map below. There are commercial businesses that sit adjacent to the impacted areas and are serviced by public water. The investigation revealed that Mr. Gross discharged approximately 4,300 gallons of diesel fuel between the two locations along the southbound roadside of Route 10.
Soil samples taken from various locations along both Digiulian Boulevard and Route 10 tested positive for pollutants such as petroleum bases hydrocarbons and diesel range organics.
In making today’s announcement, Attorney General Brown thanked the Criminal Division, Environmental and Natural Resources Crimes Unit Chief D’Arcy Talley, Assistant Attorney General Eileen Murphy, Chief Investigator Thomas Waugh, and Investigator Ronald Weinreich, Jr. Attorney General Brown also thanked partners with the Maryland Department of the Environment, including the Oil Control Program and the Emergency Response Division, for their assistance in this investigation and prosecution. Finally, Attorney General Brown thanked State’s Attorney for Anne Arundel County Anne Colt Leitess for her assistance with this prosecution.
