Environmental group seeks to intervene in Agri Star pollution case following Iowa AG’s settlement

An environmental group that advocates for clean water in northeast Iowa has filed a motion to intervene in a lawsuit brought by the state against a Postville meatpacking over its repeated wastewater pollution violations.

The Driftless Water Defenders filed a motion Aug. 12 seeking to join the case brought by the Iowa Department of Natural Resources against Agri Star Meat & Poultry as a third party to ensure that “the facts of Agri Star’s violations can be fully considered,” and so violations can be ”fully presented“ in court.

This comes after Driftless Water Defenders filed a federal lawsuit against the Postville plant in February, seeking permit compliance and fines over the pollution that has been discharged into Hecker Creek in Allamakee County.

The group initially said it was planning to sue the meatpacking plant in December 2024, over wastewater violations tied to the excessive pollution of ammonia, copper, chloride and other pollutants.

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Steve Veysey, a retired Iowa State University chemist who serves on the nonprofit’s board of advisers, said he was involved in two lawsuits filed in the early 2000s against the same facility over the same violations.

“It’s a travesty,” Veysey said. “We are now where we were almost 20 years ago, fighting the same battle.”

‘Disappointing and inadequate’

The group’s request comes less than a month after Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird’s office announced it had reached a settlement agreement with Agri Star over the lawsuit brought by the DNR.

The consent decree — a settlement between two parties — was filed in Iowa Courts Online July 18, the same day the lawsuit was filed.

Per the consent decree, Agri Star would be required to pay $50,000 in penalty fines and it must come into full compliance with its National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit by Dec. 31, 2026.

In its motion to intervene, Driftless Water Defenders argues that the fine is inadequate when compared to the company’s violations.

“Despite the egregious and repeated violations that span the course of multiple years detailed in the Petition, the Consent Decree only imposes a $50,000 fine — amounting to less than the penalty for a single day violation under the federal (Clean Water Act),” the Driftless Water Defenders’ motion to intervene states.

Driftless Water Defenders, represented by its attorney, Jim Larew of Iowa City, says its intervention is an objection to the settlement.

“(Driftless Water Defenders) respectfully requests that the Court enter all appropriate Orders to grant its motion to intervene, to reconsider its entry of the Consent Decree, and to allow (Driftless Water Defenders) the opportunity to object to the terms and conditions of the Consent Decree.”

Michael Schmidt, staff attorney for the Iowa Environmental Council, said the settlement from the Attorney General’s Office was “very disappointing and inadequate” in regard to the Clean Water Act.

The “Clean Water Act allows for very significant penalties, large enough to deter violations and deter repeat violations,” Schmidt said. “And with the settlement with Agri Star, the penalty was not large enough to reflect that amount of non-compliance.”

Schmidt said that since Agri Star has been polluting waterways in northeast Iowa for several years — about 60 times since January 2020, according to the Attorney General’s Office — the financial penalty was too small to reflect the severity of the violations.

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The Clean Water Act regulates the discharges of pollutants into waterways throughout the United States and regulates surface water quality. The Act was initially enacted in 1948 but was significantly reorganized and expanded in 1972, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

“When Congress passed the statute, its goal was to end surface water discharges of all pollutants by 1985 and so we're decades behind that goal, and still letting facilities like Agri Star put an inordinate amount of chloride into these streams, in violation of the plain and unambiguous requirements,” said Dan Snyder, who is the Director of the Environmental Enforcement Project and the council of record for the Driftless Water Defenders.

Olivia Cohen covers energy and environment for The Gazette and is a corps member with Report for America, a national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues. She is also a contributing writer for the Ag and Water Desk, an independent journalism collaborative focusing on the Mississippi River Basin.

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Comments: olivia.cohen@thegazette.com