Prairie Farms Dairy fined $10K for discharging wastewater (2024)

Iowa DNR order cooperative to upgrade wastewater treatment system by 2030

Prairie Farms Dairy has agreed to pay $10,000 — the maximum penalty the Iowa Department of Natural Resources may enforce — for exceeding wastewater discharge limits 139 times between 2018 and 2022 at its cheese manufacturing facility near Monona.

The Iowa DNR sent the facility in Clayton County eight notices of violation between 2020 and 2023 with corrective actions the dairy should take to improve its wastewater treatment process, according to the consent order made public last week.

In reviewing Prairie Farms records Dec. 15, 2022, inspectors saw the facility had exceeded limits set in the its National Pollution Discharge Elimination System permit 139 times, discharging wastewater into to an unnamed tributary to Silver Creek.

“Prairie Farms was issued an NPDES permit and on multiple occasions the Department communicated the need to comply with that permit,” the consent order states. “Nevertheless, the permit was not complied with and illegal discharges have occurred.”

In responses to the violation notices since 2020, Prairie Farms promised to make changes, including programming new equipment, conducting operator retraining, ordering new membranes for a reverse osmosis system and installing new proximity switches. In the latest response, in August, Prairie Farms said it would have “ongoing evaluation of recommendations by the two third-party firms for engineered solutions,” the consent order states.

Prairie Farms does not admit or deny the Iowa DNR’s statements of fact, but it agreed to:

Prairie Farms is a farmer-owned cooperative based in Edwardsville, Ill., founded in 1938. The cooperative merged with Swiss Valley in 2017. The Monona facility manufactures Swiss, baby Swiss, Gouda, cream cheese, Neufchatel and sweet whey, according to Monona Chamber & Economic Development Inc.

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