Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster announced Tuesday that he had filed a lawsuit against Tyson Foods for dumping acidic wastewater into a stormwater treatment plant in southwest Missouri, killing at least 100,000 fish.
Koster's lawsuit includes six counts against Tyson for pollution of state waters and violations of Missouri's hazardous waste laws, a news release said. He is seeking penalties against Tyson, compensation for the damage to the stream and reimbursement for the state's costs in investigating the incident.
"Missouri's waterways are among our state's most important natural resources," Koster said in a statement. "Tyson's conduct threatened the vitality of Clear Creek as a resource for Southwest Missouri. Tyson Foods must be held accountable for dumping pollution into the waterways of Southwest Missouri, and this conduct must not happen again."
According to a report from the Missouri Department of Natural Resources, Tyson dumped wastewater containing Alimet, an acidic animal feed supplement, into the wastewater treatment plant in Monett. Tyson was dumping the compound because a leak at the company's nearby Aurora facility allowed the chemical to seep into a backup containment system.
When a truck transporting some of that wastewater pulled into the Monett plant, the driver said the material was "animal fat" for pre-treatment, according to the report. The pre-treatment operator then started pumping the wastewater into the pre-treatment system, but noticed that the material was not animal fat and diverted the remaining wastewater to an empty basin within 10 minutes of pumping.
The captured wastewater was treated for acidity and discharged to the city's wastewater treatment plant from May 20-23. The wastewater that had not been diverted was not treated for acidity before flowing to the plant May 16.
According to the report, a fish kill occurred on a 4-mile stretch of Clear Creek between Monett and Pierce.
In an interview last week at Pierce City Park, Tami Gripka, who lives nearby in Stark City and had seen the dead fish, said the smell was the most striking part of the incident.
"It smelled like rotting fish in still water, but I don't think it was the fish that we were smelling. It was a different kind of smell," she said. "We looked over the side of the bridge, and we saw all kinds of dead fish down there. We saw at least 10 or 12 dead fish."
Tyson spokesman Worth Sparkman said the company is running ads in local newspapers apologizing for the incident.
"We're sorry about what happened and have started trying to make things right," he said in an email. "Through newspaper ads, we're publicly apologizing to the people of Monett and Pierce City, we've met with some community leaders and we've asked to meet with the Missouri Department of Natural Resources to see how we can help improve Clear Creek.
"We've also taken a hard look at how we manage environmental matters at Monett and are improving our processes because we don't want this to ever happen again," he said.
Business on 06/18/2014