Pilgrim Foods has agreed to pay nearly $950,000 in civil penalties for alleged hazardous waste violations that created unhealthy conditions in a stream that feeds into the Souhegan River, according to court filings.
“There were several indicators that this was a very unhealthy stream,” said Mary E. Maloney, the assistant attorney general for the Environmental Protection Agency. “It was essentially dead, meaning there was no aquatic life in it anymore.”
Pilgrim Foods, a Greenville company that produces vinegar and mustard, has agreed to pay $500,000 in penalties to the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Environmental Services for multiple alleged violations related to discharges of cleaning chemicals that impacted an unnamed stream that is on their property.
Specifically, the company will have to pay $51,000 this year and $74,800 for the following five years to the state’s Hazardous Waste Cleanup Fund. It will also pay $75,000 to the Rivers Management and Protection Fund, to be paid in six payments over as many years.
In addition, Pilgrim Foods has also agreed to use an additional $898,000 for audits, inspections and corrective actions at the plant. Half that number, $449,000, will account for a portion of Pilgrim Food’s civil forfeiture.
Pilgrim Foods has faced wastewater violation issues since the 1980s, and has had issues with discharges from both its tank farm and from its unlined lagoons. The most recent allegations stem from 2014 and 2015, after the company ceased to use the lagoons and began transporting its hazardous waste to Rochester for disposal.
Most of the charges relate to wastewater discharges into the unnamed stream, including discharge of acetic acid multiple times, discharge of corrosive hazardous waste, failure to dispose of a corrosive hazardous waste at an authorized facility, failure to examine or report discharges of hazardous waste in the required timeframe, and the improper mixing of hazardous wastes.
Ongoing monitoring of the stream above, at and below the company have showed significant impacts to the pH levels of the water, and an increase of benthic fungus, an indicator of bad stream health, in the areas downstream.
“As a result of the impacts, the unnamed stream is no longer suitable for the colonization, passage, inhabitation, or reproduction by aquatic life for approximately 1,000 linear feet,” the complaint states. “In addition, the connection of this tributary to the Souhegan River poses a pollutant threat to a river protected under the N.H. Rivers Management and Protection Act.”
In recent years, the pH downstream of the plant has been below legal limits 90 times, including several “significant” violations since the summer of 2014. “There have been ongoing violations,” said Maloney.
One of these violations occurred in the week of July 28, 2014, when the company generated a spent phosphoric acid cleaning solution from cleaning five acetator reaction vessel cooling systems in the Vengar Building. According to the complaint, a leaking effluent pipe allowed spent phosphoric acid to escape the wastewater collection system, affecting both the stream and a beaver pond.
The company told DES at the time that the intent was to dispose of the cleaning solution with its other wastewater.
Also, on Nov. 30, 2015, a pump seal broke in the former garage area, causing vinegar to be released into the area and a containment sump system.
An overflow of the containment system allowed the vinegar to enter the stream, causing the pH to plummet.
Finally, on Dec. 2, while cleaning the acetator coils inside the vinegar building with a sodium hydroxide solution, a hose broke on the western side of the building and released approximately 50 gallons of the solution onto the driveway.
Ashley Saari can be reached at 924-7172 ext. 244.