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Iowa Dairy Farmer Convicted of Violating Clean Water Act

Release Date: 04/27/2005
Contact Information:

Contact: Stacie Findon-Keller, 202-564-7338 / [email protected]

(04/27/05) Carl Simon, owner and operator of Simon Dairy in Farley, Ia., was sentenced to serve 30 months in prison, pay a $5,000 administrative penalty that had been assessed earlier by the Iowa Department of Natural Resources and serve one year of supervised release on April 6 by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Iowa in Cedar Rapids as a result of his conviction on four counts of violating the Clean Water Act. The charges arose from the defendant's illegal dumping of cow manure and waste milk into Hogan's Branch, a tributary of the Mississippi River. The illegal discharges occurred between May of 2003 and January of 2004. Simon illegally disposed of the cow manure by using two foot trenches dug from his dairy manure lagoon to a steep embankment overlooking Hogan's Branch. He illegally discharged the waste milk into Hogan's Branch by using a four-inch PVC pipe. Simon has an extensive enforcement history with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources (IDNR) and was previously placed under an administrative order and fined $5,000 for illegal discharges into the Branch. He refused to pay the fine or make any of the changes in his disposal practices required by the administrative order. Dumping cow manure and waste milk into surface waters can make the waters unfit for human use and can harm fish and wildlife. The case was investigated by the Iowa attorney general's office, the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation, the IDNR and the St. Louis Office of EPA's Criminal Investigation Division. The case was prosecuted by the U.S. attorney's office in Cedar Rapids, Ia.