Miller
DES MOINES, Iowa (Legal Newsline) - Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller announced on Thursday that a judge has ordered a cattle company to pay a civil penalty following the alleged pollution of a tributary.
Haverhals Farms, a 3,500-head cattle operation, allegedly discharged approximately 950,000 gallons of manure into an unnamed Sioux County tributary. As a result, a Sioux County judge ordered the Hawarden-based company and owner Peter Haverhals to pay a $15,000 penalty.
On March 26, 2010, the Iowa Department of Natural Resources responded to a report of a manure discharge into a tributary of Six Mile Creek, according to Miller's petition. In the consent decree filed Wednesday in Sioux County district court, Haverhals Farms and Peter Haverhals admitted discharging and land-applying manure that caused surface or groundwater pollution.
In addition to the penalty, district court Judge Edward A. Jacobson ordered the company and its owner to comply with state laws that protect Iowa waterways and groundwater. Under terms of the consent order, the defendants are permanently enjoined from further violations of the previously violated pollution laws.
Iowa law prohibits a feedlot operation with more than 1,000 livestock from discharging manure or effluent into waterways without a permit. Land-applied effluent must be applied in a manner that will not cause pollution of surface water or groundwater.