Photo by Justin Shuck.

A Georgia man hired as a contractor to clean the storm water sewer system on the National Mall was sentenced to 10 months in prison after he pleaded guilty to dumping the waste water into the Potomac River.

The office of U.S. Attorney Ron Machen announced today that a judge sentenced 48-year-old Patrick Brightwell to ten months in prison stemming from a contract job he held between 2009 to 2011, in which he illegally dumped sewage water into the Potomac River, rather than dumping it in a treatment plant like he was supposed to.

Brightwell managed a company hired by the National Park Service to clean the National Mall’s storm water sewer system and, between 2009 and 2011, he directed his employees to start dumping waste into the East Potomac Park—an entry point into the Potomac River system. Court reports say that his company used a vacuum truck to remove waste from the Mall’s storm water sewer system and then would empty it “into a storm drain near a parking lot” at the East Potomac Park.

In June, Brightwell pleaded guilty to one count of violating the Clean Water Act. In addition to his prison sentence, a release states that he was “ordered to pay $270,000 in restitution to the National Park Service.”