SYRACUSE, N.Y. (AP) – The Pepsi Bottling Group will pay nearly $3 million in fines and cleanup costs for illegally dumping industrial waste into a creek that empties into Onondaga Lake, state and local officials said Wednesday.

Under the settlement, the company will pay $2.78 million to help pay for Onondaga Lake reclamation projects, said Assistant Onondaga County District Attorney Paul Berry.

The company also will pay $200,000 in fines for its illegal dumping activities in suburban Syracuse, as well as to settle charges in Utica and Chesterfield, said state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer.

Scott Fein, a corporate lawyer, appeared before DeWitt Town Justice David Gideon on Wednesday to plead guilty to one misdemeanor charge of violating environmental conservation law. Authorities said the illegal dumping occurred at Pepsi’s DeWitt plant between 1999 and February 2002.

According to Berry, Pepsi admitted that it disposed of soft drink syrup mix and other waste soda products into Ley Creek, a tributary of Onondaga Lake, without a permit. The syrup has a high sugar content and the discarded waste has the potential to remove and dissolve oxygen from the water, affecting fish and plant life, said Department of Environmental Conservation Commissioner Erin Crotty.

DEC investigators turned up various violations at all of the Pepsi Bottling Group’s nine facilities in New York. Berry said the violations in Onondaga County were the most noticeable because of the impact on Onondaga Lake, which is a federal Superfund site and the focus of a massive cleanup project.

Berry said the guilty pleas for the cases in DeWitt, Utica and Chesterfield were in satisfaction of all criminal and civil allegations against the bottling group related to the pollution investigation.

Fein said the corporation wasn’t aware of the problems until they were pointed out by the DEC, noting the company acknowledged responsibility. Berry said the company took immediate steps to correct the problems and there have been no new pollution violations since the matter was brought to the attention of Pepsi officials.

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