CEDAR RAPIDS, IA -- Gene Riddle, owner of a long-defunct printed circuit board fabricator, last week pleaded guilty to federal charges of illegally storing and discarding toxic waste.

Riddle, now 74, closed the eponymously named Riddle Inc. in 1991. According to the charges, however, waste chemicals from the factory, including raw copper sulfate, copper with ferric sulfate, ferric sulfate, sulfuric acid, nitric acid, tin-lead, formaldehyde, potassium cyanide and several fuming acids, was left in barrels in a deteriorating building just a few hundred feet from a tributary. Flooding from the river breached the building on multiple occasions, according to published reports.

Hit with several counts of failing to secure permits for the waste, dumping and other charges, Riddle pleaded guilty on behalf of his former company to one felony count of knowing storage of hazardous waste without a permit, and to a misdemeanor count of violating of the Clean Water Act.

While Riddle's sentence has not been handed down, he faces up to one year in prison and potentially millions in fines and cleanup costs.

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