Officials with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Georgia say a New Orleans company has pleaded guilty to illegally transporting and dumping hazardous waste that "can cause serious health issues" in Savannah’s Historic Carver Village neighborhood.

The company, Boasso America Inc., which has a facility in Garden City, pleaded guilty this week to a felony violation of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. Earlier this year, two former Boasso employees, 52-year-old Ray Mitchell of Pooler and 40-year-old Maurice Miller of Savannah, were convicted for their individual roles in transporting and dumping an ingredient commonly found in mothballs "into the ground" in Carver Village, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said Friday in a news release.

Mitchell was sentenced to 20 months in federal prison and Miller to 28 months.

"This company and some of its employees callously dumped hazardous waste into a local community, all to save a little time and money," Acting U.S. Attorney James Durham said Friday in a news release. "Because of their dangerous decisions, the company will be paying a significant amount of money and their employees are spending a lot of time in a federal prison."

According to evidence presented during multiple guilty plea hearings, Boasso provides transportation services for tank containers containing hazardous wastes. Boasso’s Garden City facility stored and transported its customers’ tanks containing hazardous waste. In 2015, rather than properly transporting and safely disposing of drums and totes at its Garden City facility that contained the hazardous chemical naphthalene, Mitchell and Miller illegally transported and dumped a significant amount of naphthalene into the ground of a nearby Savannah neighborhood, federal prosecutors said. Exposure to amounts of naphthalene, a main ingredient found in mothballs, can cause serious health issues, according to prosecutors. Once discovered, police and environmental officials quickly removed the hazardous waste before it caused any health concerns.

Further investigation by law enforcement officials uncovered that Boasso employees fabricated invoices in an effort to hide their illegal dumping of hazardous waste, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.

The investigation of this case was led by the federal Environmental Protection Agency with assistance from the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, the Savannah-Chatham police department and Savannah Fire & Emergency Services’ hazmat team.

As part of its plea agreement, Boasso has agreed to pay full restitution, including cleanup costs, has agreed to pay the maximum criminal fine penalty of $500,000, and has agreed to establish, implement, and enforce an effective environmental compliance plan, so that future dumping incidents do not happen.

"This corporate defendant and some of its employees knowingly allowed hazardous waste to be illegally dumped without regard for the potential dangers that its release could pose to public health," Andy Castro, special agent in charge of EPA’s criminal enforcement program for Georgia, said Friday in a statement. "These corporate and individual convictions show that those who put public health and the environment at risk by violating the law will be held to account."

Assistant United States Attorneys Tania D. Groover and Carlton R. Bourne prosecuted the case on behalf of the United States.