(C) Iowa Capital Dispatch.
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DNR reduces fine for repeat manure offenders
['Jared Strong', 'More From Author', '- April']
Date: 2022-04-18 00:00:00
A pair of northeast Iowa dairy farmers successfully appealed for a reduced fine for contaminating a creek with manure despite a similar violation in recent years, according to administrative orders of the Iowa Department of Natural Resources.
William and Jeff Lawler were initially fined $10,000 — the maximum amount — in February for the most-recent contamination at their rural Peosta farm.
That happened in March 2019. The Lawlers do not have adequate storage for the manure produced by their nearly 500 cows and must regularly spread the manure on nearby land that is steeply sloped.
“Snow was still on the ground and rain was forecasted,” one of the DNR orders noted about the 2019 incident. Those conditions led an unspecified amount of manure to wash into a terrace with a drain pipe that goes into a ravine near the creek.
The contamination was first noticed by someone who saw dead fish in the creek. A subsequent DNR investigation found 238 dead fish along the mile stretch of the creek, which is a tributary of the Little Maquoketa River.
Tests of water in the area found elevated levels of ammonia, and a DNR environmental specialist noted dead and decomposing cows in the ravine. Iowa law requires farm animals to be composted within 24 hours of their death, according to a DNR order.
The February 2022 administrative order included a total penalty of about $11,100 for the fine and restitution for the fish kill. The Lawlers appealed the decision and submitted a plan to prevent future creek contaminations, and this month the DNR reduced the fine by $3,000.
Brett Meyers, an environmental specialist for the DNR who investigated the manure release, said the Lawlers have since obtained new equipment to allow them to inject manure into farm fields to lessen the potential for runoff.
Fine previously reduced for 2014 manure spill
The Lawlers had received a previous fine reduction in 2016 when they appealed a DNR order that punished them for manure overflows from a storage basin that led to another fish kill.
In that instance, the Lawlers had failed to report the overflow that happened in September 2014, which is required within six hours after the discovery of a manure release under Iowa law. Instead, it was a passerby who noted dead fish and brown water in the creek and reported it, a DNR order said.
A fish kill investigation found that there were 138 dead fish because of manure that had contaminated the creek.
The Lawlers struggled for months to remedy the situation, according to a DNR administrative order. They dug a second pit to catch the overflowing manure, but the DNR also told them to construct dams at the edge of the property and in the creek to block further manure contamination. The Lawlers pumped enough manure from the main storage basin to lower its surface to about two feet below the top of the basin.
But about three months after the 2014 spill, someone reported that the basin was poised to overflow again, and a DNR investigator later saw the basin overflowing into the secondary pit. The investigator noted that the Lawlers had also failed to submit a plan to prevent future manure releases and to assess the structural integrity of one of the basins. The Lawlers then removed all solid materials from the primary basin.
The DNR in 2015 initially fined the Lawlers $9,000 and an additional $1,100 for fish kill restitution. They appealed, and the fine was reduced to $6,000.
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