A Kansas-based pipeline company has agreed to pay nearly one-and-a-half million dollars to the state and federal government for its role in an anhydrous ammonia spill that killed thousands of fish in a north central Iowa stream. Charles Larson, U.S. Attorney for Iowa’s Northern District, says the feds prosecuted the case against the Koch Pipeline Company because it was a major incident. Larson says Iowa’s environment is best protected when state and federal officials work closely together. Jeff Vonk, director of the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, says if the case had been pursued through state courts, the company would have been subjected to a fine in the range of 25-thousand dollars. As a result of the federal case, though, the state of Iowa will get 450-thousand dollars. Vonk says today mark’s the culmination of a long legal process that started December 14, 2001 when a pipeline owned by Koch was ruptured. Anhydrous ammonia ended up in a stream in Kossuth County, contaminating 50 miles of Lott’s Creek near Algona and killing more than a million fish. Vonk says it’s the worst fish kill ever documented in Iowa. Vonk says the 450-thousand dollar fine will be used to help restore Lott’s Creek and the upper fork of the Des Moines River.Vonk says they’ll build some new boat ramps and parking areas near the Creek. They’ll buy some nearby wetland areas and target those for restoration as well to improve the quality of the water in the area. Vonk says the waterway hasn’t entirely recovered from the spill.Vonk says a lot of larger, game fish were killed, and it takes longer for those fish to re-establish in the area. The feds are getting one million dollars from the company, and it’ll be deposited in the U.S. Treasury. Larson, the U.S. Attorney based in Cedar Rapids, says the spill was big enough to warrant the feds’ involvement.Larson says the case sends a strong message that prosecutors intend to do what they can to keep Iowa’s environment “as safe and as pleasant as legally possible.”
