NJ man sentenced for Delco fuel-dumping incident near school

A New Jersey man has been sentenced in connection to a 2021 incident in which he illegally dumped gasoline down an embankment bordering Coebourn Elementary School in Brookhaven.

According to news reports, George Smith, 41, of Vineland, New Jersey, received 11 and a half months and 15 days to 23 months in prison after pleading guilty in 2024 to a charge of “felony prohibition against other pollution and felony causing a catastrophe.” He was also sentenced to five years’ probation.

According to prosecutors, the incident occurred when Smith was delivering gasoline to a Gas N Go store after filling up his truck with 8,500 gallons of fuel on June 11, 2021. Records indicated that while Smith was scheduled to deliver fuel to a location in Brookhaven on his fourth stop, he instead made that his first stop – but the quantity of gasoline he was carrying would not fit into the underground tanks in Brookhaven.

And because safety features on Smith’s truck did not allow him to refill the truck if gas remained in the fuel compartments, Smith would have had to make a partial delivery at his next stop. To avoid that, Smith spilled nearly 4,000 gallons of fuel down the Brookhaven embankment, prosecutors said. The incident reportedly killed fish and eels, and it caused the temporary closure of Coebourn Elementary School at the time.