Tyson Foods to Pay $2 Million for Pumping Animal Waste into Missouri River

Tyson Fresh Meats, the world's largest supplier of beef and pork, will pay a hefty $2 million fine for pumping animal waste into the Missouri River, the Justice Department said.

The DOJ said the company, a subsidiary of Tyson Foods Inc. of Springdale, Ark., violated a 2002 agreement with the government to limit its discharges into the river from a beef processing facility in Dakota City, Neb. The government said the company did not adequately treat the wastewater it discharges into the river, and as a result, fecal coliform and nitrates were discharged. The DOJ said that the discharges caused high levels of toxicity to aquatic life in the river.

Regulators said Tyson discharges an average of 5 million gallons of treated wastewater from the facility into the river each day. Tyson Foods said the wastewater issues at the plant had been resolved and the water treatment system there was operating effectively.

Barge Use Decline Spurs Questions on Best Use of Missouri River

Long-haul commercial barges on the Missouri River can be as hard to spot as the endangered pallid sturgeon. In 2002, the amount hauled dipped below 1 million tons and has failed to reach that level again. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers estimated that barges hauled about 300,000 tons in 2007 and 350,000 tons in 2008. That compares to the Chain of Rocks Lock on the Mississippi River near St. Louis, where barges hauled 68 million tons in 2007.The corps blamed the lack of barge traffic on a long drought that had depleted reservoirs in Montana, North Dakota and South Dakota. » read more