Follow-Up: Lewis County NY Manure Spill Penalties Levied

Marks Farms  has agreed to $2.2 million in penalties as a result of environmental damage caused last August when a liquid manure lagoon at the dairy operation broke open, sending some three million gallons of the toxic waste pouring into the Black River. 

Under terms of a consent order entered into with the state Department of Environmental Conservation, Marks Farms will pay $700,000 in penalties in installments over six years. The payments will be split, with $310,000 being deposited into the Conservation Fund and $390,000 to pay for actual environmental damage caused by the spill.

The farm also agreed to $1.5 million in environmental benefit projects. To satisfy that part of the consent order, the farm will give up public fishing rights easements on its land to 33 feet up from the banks of the Black River and Whetstone Creek, and build parking lots plus a car-top boat launching site for the Black River and a footpath to Whetstone Creek. The farm also will give up development rights easements over most of the farm's land. The development easements will allow Marks Farms to continue operations on the land, which will be protected as open space for the future.

View a local newspaper article here, or the DEC press release at: http://www.dec.state.ny.us/website/press/pressrel/2006/2006120.html