The Department of Natural Resources has notified six Carroll County feedlot owners that they’re partly responsible for a fish kill discovered in December in Brushy Creek in west-central Iowa. Dan Stipe, the supervisor of the D-N-R’s Atlantic field office, says the investigation began December 16th.
Stipe says they moved up the watershed and these are the six sites that they observed releasing solids into the creek. Stipe says this is the first step in the process. He says they “notice of violation” to the producers to that tell them what violations occurred and what steps they need to take to fix the problem.
Stipe says the fixes for the six lots vary. He says in one or two cases the feedlots are really close to the creek and something may need to be done about their proximity to the creek. Stipe says in other cases there were controls in, but he says apparently they needed additional maintenance. And he says some of the lots had no controls to prevent the manure from entering the creek.
Stipe says the D-N-R is reviewing the cases to see if there will be any penalties.
He says they’ll discuss it internally to see if any additional enforcement action is warranted. Stipe says icy conditions prevented them from getting an accurate count of the number of fish killed by the spills. Stipe says the D-N-R has also sent notices of violation to two other producers regarding manure releases into Storm Creek and Elk Run Creek in Carroll County. He says additional notices to other producers could follow, as well as further legal action.
The following producers received a notice regarding Brushy Creek: Rahn Eischeid ,Gary Rupiper, Neal Rupiper, James Staiert of Staiert Farm Partnership, Joe Tomka and Bob Venner.