State officials investigate wastewater release into Storm Lake

A state environmental team is now in northwest Iowa looking into this week’s wastewater spill of up to eight-thousand gallons into Storm Lake. The pipeline at the Tyson Fresh Meats Plant in Storm Lake ruptured about 10:30 Monday night. Tyson officials immediately shutdown the plant and took measures to stop the flow of water into the drain including building dikes to stop flows to the storm sewer system. D-N-R environmental specialist Julie Sievers says within ten minutes the entire Tyson plant was shut down and a dike was built in the plant parking lot, which minimized the amount of wastewater that went into the lake. She said the spill could have been a lot worse had it not been stopped so quickly. She says there’s no evidence the pipe was used intentionally by Tyson to circumvent their treatment facility. The D-N-R continues to monitor the effect of the spill on the lake. Sievers says there’s been no fish kill and additional water testing is being done.