Ex-Cemetery Boss Admits Ordering Placement of Oil Drums in Graves

The former manager of the city-owned Mt. Hope Cemetery admitted Friday to the city’s Civil Service Commission that he ordered a cemetery employee to crush a 55-gallon oil drum and then had the flattened drum buried in an indigent’s grave in February.

George Stelter, 67, was fired after the incident was reported by another employee to city environmental officials, who then opened the grave and found the drum. Stelter was dismissed in June for violating state hazardous-waste disposal laws. Stelter appealed his firing to the commission.

Deputy City Atty. Rudolf Hradecky called Robert Jones, the employee who crushed the drum. Jones testified that he saw oil come out of the drum after rolling over it with a backhoe.

Although Stelter admitted to having the drum crushed and buried, he told the commission that the drum had once contained clean, unused oil. He said he did not know it was considered hazardous waste.

He said he used the drum to shore up the indigent graves because they were in loose, sandy soil and needed the support. Indigents, he said, are buried in cardboard or particle-board caskets that eventually disintegrate and cause the earth to settle. It was a technique that he said he learned from an Indian when he owned and operated a cemetery in Redding. Stelter became cemetery manager in 1985.

Commissioner David Lewis asked Stelter if, in light of the administrative hearing, he would have done anything differently. Stelter responded that he attended a city-sponsored class in which he found out that oil was considered hazardous waste. “I would have had the barrel washed before I would have used it,” he said. “But I still would have used the barrel.”

Hradecky argued to the commission that Stelter’s firing should be upheld because the incident demonstrated his bad judgment.

“We do not expect this gentleman to be a technical expert on all the laws and all the procedures used to dispose of oil. . . . But, as a manager, we expect him to use some . . . common sense,” Hradecky said.

Stelter’s attorney, Everett L. Bobbitt, argued that the oil that came out of the drum was “new oil,” which had not been contaminated and therefore should not be considered hazardous.

The real reason for Stelter’s dismissal was that he had grown too old for the job, Bobbitt argued.

“They sent him to hazardous waste school after this event. I don’t know why they decided to send him to school if they thought this was so terrible and he ought to be terminated,” he said.

“They wanted to fire this old man.”

The commissioners, Chairwoman Margaret Sellers, Hope Logan and Dick Lewis, will decide whether to uphold Stelter’s firing or to discipline him in some other manner within 30 days.

Misdemeanor charges are pending against Stelter. The case is set for trial in February.