Press Release  AG’s Office Secures Court Order Preventing Two Waste Management Companies from Dumping Solid Waste into Blackstone Wetlands

BOSTON — The Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office (AGO) announced today that it has secured a preliminary injunction against Marchand LLC d/b/a Marchand Septic, Marchand Septic Service, Marchand Environmental, and Smart Rentals; 25 Elm Street LLC; and their owners Michael L. Marchand and Michael Marchand to immediately halt all illegal solid waste disposal operations and refrain from wetland alterations at their property located at 25 Elm Street in Blackstone and the Town of Blackstone’s abutting property. 

Under the Court Order, the Defendants must immediately stop storing, processing, transferring, and disposing of solid waste, as well as immediately stop all activities that remove, fill, dredge, or alter wetland resource areas and buffer zones at 25 Elm Street and the Town of Blackstone’s abutting property. Additionally, to ensure compliance, the Defendants must allow the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP) access to its property to confirm that the Defendants are not dumping sewage at 25 Elm Street or on the town’s property.  

The preliminary injunction is a result of an ongoing lawsuit filed by the AGO in April 2024 against the Defendants for alleged violations of the Massachusetts Wetlands Protection Act, Massachusetts Clean Waters Act, State Environmental Code, and Massachusetts Solid Waste Disposal Act. According to the complaint, the AGO alleges that the Defendants own and operate a facility within the Town of Blackstone on property containing wetland resource areas that abut town property. The wetlands are located within regulated areas that protect some of the town’s drinking water supply. 

In the complaint, the AGO alleges that the Defendants used wood waste, construction and demolition debris, and other waste to expand the area of the site available for their business activities. They then allegedly dumped sewage from a pumping truck into the large woodpile, resulting in septage leaking into wetland resource areas. The AGO further alleges that the Defendants’ trucks discharged septic waste directly into the ground near the wetland resource areas, resulting in dangerously high levels of fecal coliform bacteria contamination from human waste, including in downgradient town wetlands. 

The AGO continues to seek civil penalties and comprehensive injunctive relief, including appropriate actions to restore the quality of the wetlands and waters.   

This matter is being handled by Assistant Attorneys General John S. Craig, Marcus D. Holmes, and Senior Enforcement Counsel Tracy Triplett of the Attorney General’s Environmental Protection Division, with the assistance of MassDEP Senior Counsel Jennifer Davis, Investigators Stephen Spencer, Timothy Dame, and Jennifer Macionus, and Environmental Analyst Matas Rudzinskas of the MassDEP Environmental Strike Force, and MassDEP Section Chief Judith Schmitz of the Central Regional Office in Worcester. 

###