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Boise-Area Hog Farm Will Pay $6,250 To Settle Waste Discharge Complaint

Release Date: 3/25/1999
Contact Information: Mark Ryan
ryan.mark@epamail.epa.gov
(208) 378-5768

99-16 - - - - - - - - - -  March 25, 1999  




FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

The Thornton hog farm in Star, Idaho, midway between Boise and Caldwell, has agreed to pay a civil penalty of $6,250 to settle a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency complaint alleging that the farm illegally discharged animal wastes into drainage ditches leading to the Boise River.

The settlement was announced today by Bub Loiselle, manager of EPA's water compliance unit at the agency's Northwest regional headquarters in Seattle.

Loiselle said the complaint stemmed from an EPA inspection of the Thornton operation last May.  The EPA visit was the third inspection at the farm performed since 1995. On two earlier visits, when EPA was accompanied by inspectors from the Idaho Division of Environmental Quality, the inspectors observed discharges of animal wastes into drainage ditches, prompting warnings to owner Bradley Thornton to stop the discharges.

Last May’s inspection, said Loiselle, was the first since EPA had designated the Thornton hog farm as a concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO) subject to the terms of the Clean Water Act, the federal law that prohibits the discharge of animal wastes from CAFOs into streams, rivers and other bodies of water. Discharges from CAFOs typically contain bacteria, large amounts
of nutrients and other organic matter that can degrade water quality and harm wildlife, and can also threaten public health.
 
In reaching the settlement, Thornton neither admitted nor denied the allegations made by EPA.