State officials are investigating at least two separate instances in which manure has been spilled into waterways in northwest Iowa this week.
The Farmers Cooperative Society runs a cattle feedlot that’s about two miles west of Sioux Center. The feedlot owners recently agreed to pay the state $40,000 in fines for previous manure spills from the operation that wound up in a nearby creek.
Investigators say this past Wednesday it appears an unattended manure pump broke free and started spraying manure outside of a storage basin and the manure eventually reach a creek.
The Iowa Department of Natural Resources is also investigating two other incidents in Sioux County. In one case, foam was standing four-foot high in a stream that runs through the Sandy Hollow Golf Course southeast of Sioux Center. Investigators say that means there’s too much “organic matter” in the water, and that “organic matter” could be manure.
In the other case, the DNR says too much liquid manure was applied to frozen farm fields northwest of Sioux Center, and the manure was draining into nearby streams.