Feds File, Settle Lawsuit Against Poultry Plant at Kiryas Joel

The EPA and the U.S. Attorney announced yesterday that the United States has filed and simultaneously entered into a consent decree settling a civil lawsuit against the Kiryas Joel Poultry Processing Plant and Kiryas Joel Meat Market Corporation for violations of the Clean Water Act (“CWA”) in connection with the operation of a poultry processing plant in Orange County.

Many Rockland residents have expressed similar concerns about a 26,000-square-foot poultry slaughterhouse proposed in New Square. An older one was shut down by federal inspectors after complaints about conditions, cbslocal.com reported. The new slaughterhouse plan received a $1.6 million grant from New York’s Empire State Development Corp.

The owners of the Kiryas Joel plant will pay a civil penalty of $330,000. They also agreed to conduct ongoing monitoring and recording of pretreatment operations, and to submit to the EPA an emergency operation plan and a corrective plan of action to prevent Clean Water Act violations from reoccurring.

“For years, the defendants flouted the law by repeatedly discharging waste from their poultry slaughterhouse into the waters of the United States. Today’s consent decree will ensure that the defendants do not resume these illegal practices in the future and requires them to pay a significant financial penalty for their misconduct,” said Preet Bhahara, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York.

According to the complaint filed Oct. 23 in federal court in White Plains:

At various times between 2008 and the present, the Defendants have spilled and allowed the overflow of untreated wastewater from their poultry processing plant into storm drains and storm sewers that discharge into two tributaries of the Ramapo River, known as Highland Brook and Tributary No. 25, in the Village of Kiryas Joel, in Orange County, New York. Between 2008 and 2012, Defendants also failed to obtain a permit for the discharge of stormwater associated with industrial activities, and illegally discharged contaminated stormwater through storm drains. Finally, from 2008 to 2012, Defendants discharged substantial volumes of untreated wastewater to the local sewage plant, interfering with that plant’s operations and causing contaminated waste to be discharged into the waters of the United States in violation of the sewage plant’s permit.