Vizier pleads guilty, will pay fine for violation

The vice president of the Greater Lafourche Port Commission and owner of a general oilfield contracting company pled guilty Monday to illegally storing solid waste.

Judge Walter Lanier ordered Donald Vizier, owner and vice president of Tidewater Docks Inc., to pay a fine; he will also be placed on unsupervised probation for one year, according to the Lafourche Parish District Attorney’s Office.

Tidewater received the same sentence, plus it must remove the illegal waste within 60 days or face additional criminal and civil penalties.

“Regardless of the complexity of these environmental cases, we will remain vigilant in our duty to prosecute,” Lafourche District Attorney Cam Morvant said in a release.

He appointed Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality Assistant Secretary Beau Brock as a special assistant district attorney on the case.

This was the first environmental criminal prosecution in Lafourche Parish, according to Morvant.

Vizier was arrested April 14 by state police at his Tidewater Docks office and booked on one count of improper disposal of hazardous materials and two counts of public intimidation.

Vizier and Tidewater were accused of illegally burning creosote, which is forbidden under the terms of its permit to burn timber. He also threatened police officers after his arrest.

According to the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, creosote is a wood preserve that can irritate the respiratory tract if inhaled.