Septic pumper gets more prison time

PALMER — A Houston septic pumper reached the end of a drawn-out criminal court process Wednesday that began with a report that he was dumping waste in a creek that feeds into the Little Susitna River.

Kenny Champ was charged with pollution of water, theft and assault on a police officer in state court, and separately in federal court he was charged with possessing an illegally short shotgun and growing marijuana. He was sentenced in the federal case earlier this month.

“What they charged me for is I had a leak on the back of my septic truck and that’s what I actually got charged for,” Kenny Champ said in a jailhouse interview Thursday. “I actually had a five-gallon bucket under it.”

He said he not only disputes that he was dumping on the property, but also there was even a creek there.

“It’s just tundra,” Champ said.

But he couldn’t fight the pollution charge for the leaky truck so he pleaded guilty Wednesday to that charge and one of theft for fencing and gating the city of Houston property.

In exchange for the guilty plea, Champ was sentenced to 305 days in prison, 300 for the theft and five for the pollution.

In the interview, Champ said he couldn’t fight the theft charge either. He didn’t put up the fence and there were numbers on the gate for people to call if they wanted access. But he knew about the problem and didn’t fix it.

“I knew about it and so that’s why I got charged for it,” he said.

Carole Holley, one of the state’s environmental crimes prosecutor, told superior Court Judge Eric Smith at Wednesday’s hearing that the initial complaint came from a neighbor.

“They were concerned about a salmon-bearing stream being impacted,” Holley said. Also, some neighbors were drawing water from it, she said.

For his part, Champ said the neighbors just didn’t like that he ran a septic business and the complaints that landed him in jail were just the latest in a string of allegations they’d made.

Holley said the creek water had been tested and found to contain elevated levels of fecal coliform bacteria.

Then Champ was arrested and “it has since remediated,” Holley said.

Champ said he didn’t know how that could have been the case, offering animals kept on nearby properties as a possible explanation for the contamination.

At any rate, that 305-day sentence is in addition to a federal sentence 28-month sentence for marijuana charges — which involved 1,700 plants — and a sawed-off shotgun — which Champ’s attorney said was mistakenly sawed so short.

During the investigation, Alaska State Troopers seized $20,000 cash that Champ had on hand. His federal court attorney said the money was for services rendered. His state attorney, Josh Fannon, said the money would go to pay Champ’s fines and to fix the problems at his property. If there is any left, Fannon said, Champ would get it back. If that $20,000 isn’t enough, Champ would pay the balance.

“He sits here I think with a case that was really blown out of proportion,” Fannon said. And the 305-day term “is a very stiff penalty for someone with a lack of a criminal history.”

In the interview, Champ said what bothers him most about the case is that people seem to think he was dumping in a waterway.

“I’m a fisherman and a hunter and there is no way I would dump into any river,” he said.

He also gets upset when people badmouth him, saying that he was able to charge such great rates because he was dumping in the Valley instead of trucking to Anchorage. He said he saved customers money by sacrificing a chunk of his own profit margin.

“I was still making in between $70 and $90 per pump,” he said. “What everybody’s charging right now is just ridiculous. They’re way overcharging, they’re making double the money.”

Contact reporter Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.