State serves violation notice on poultry farm for manure spill
UTAH - A Cache County poultry farm responsible for the spill of an estimated 2 million gallons of wastewater into the Cub and Bear Rivers has been served with a violation notice by state regulators.Ritewood Eggs in Lewiston was cited by the Utah Water Quality Board after an early March incident in which the company breached the dike of a holding pond at its composting facility. That allowed wastewater containing manure and chicken body parts to flow into an irrigation ditch, which in turn flowed into the Cub River. The confluence with the Bear River is just a short distance downstream.
Company executives told state water quality officials that they opened up the holding pond because it was about to overflow with high storm water runoff. But Walt Baker, the state's director of the Division of Water Quality, said Ritewood had neither a permit to take such action, nor an emergency plan to cope with a major spill.
Source: SaltLakeTribune
17 May 2005
1 minute read
