Dairy processor fined for overwhelming southeastern Minnesota sewer plant by dumping raw milk

A Plainview, Minn., dairy processor has been fined once again for dumping nearly 7,000 gallons of raw cream into a sewage system and nearby ditch, shutting down the town’s wastewater treatment plant for four days.

Plainview Milk Products Cooperative in Wabasha County now has had four spills in the last two years.

The raw cream overwhelmed Plainview’s wastewater treatment plant, causing it to pump cloudy water into a tributary of a popular trout stream and exceed organic pollution limits for a month.

The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) recently fined the company $20,000 for the latest two spills, which happened July 3 and April 6 last year. The state also last year fined the company about $18,000 for two spills in 2022.

State regulators consider a company’s history of violations when determining a fine, said Steven Speltz, an MPCA environmental specialist. But state law only allows the agency to levy an administrative fine of up to $20,000, he said; anything steeper would have to be negotiated in a settlement with the company.

Becky Pearson, the general manager and controller of Plainview Milk, did not return messages seeking comment.

The largest of the four spills was last April, when about 60,000 pounds of cream poured onto the plant’s production floor in the early morning hours after “incorrect connections” were made, according to the state’s inspection records. The creamery’s permit requires it to immediately notify the state when a spill happens, to give the sewer plant time to divert the cream into a giant holding tank and keep it from overwhelming the entire system.

The spill was captured on company cameras at 12:40 a.m., according to inspectors. The creamery, however, let it drain into the sewer system until around 6:30 a.m. before telling anyone.

“If we had just gotten a phone call, it would have been fine,” said Richard Turri, the plant manager for the Plainview-Elgin Sanitary Sewer District. “But we weren’t notified, and by the time I got into the plant, it had already gone through the facility and was starting to head toward the river.”

The sewer plant discharges treated water into a tributary of the North Branch of the Whitewater River, a designated trout stream.

The raw cream from the April spill caused a large spike of a pollution measurement called carbonaceous biochemical oxygen demand. That’s a calculation of how much oxygen gets sucked out of the water by a bloom of bacteria fed by the pollution. Bacteria blooms can be dangerous to human health. When they use up enough oxygen, they can also cause massive fish kills and destroy aquatic insect populations.

The Plainview co-op has a history of not reporting its spills. In January 2022, the creamery sent an unknown amount of milk into the sewer system after a relay failed. The spill was discovered after the water in the sewer plant had turned white.

Later that year in October, a sewer line inside the creamery got plugged up by milk fats and solids, sending an unknown amount of industrialized wastewater into a nearby ditch. State inspectors discovered the spill after getting a complaint from someone who saw the milk-contaminated water pooling outside.

In 2016, Plainview Milk spilled 250 gallons of sodium hydroxide — a hazardous industrial chemical solution — into the sewer system and didn’t report it, according to state records. The spill happened after an employee blocked a safeguard valve with a screwdriver, inspectors wrote.

Company officials knew about the spill for more than a day before it was discovered by regulators when 6,000 dead fish were found floating in a North Branch tributary. The MPCA did not fine Plainview Milk for the sodium hydroxide spill.

Inspectors found in 2015 that the company wasn’t monitoring its discharges properly. In 2014, Plainview Milk was caught dumping its wastewater into a manure storage lagoon without a permit. The MPCA did not fine the company for either of the two violations.

In 2007, the company agreed to pay a $35,000 penalty after sewer plant operators noticed that the wastewater coming from Plainview Milk was causing a tributary of the North Branch to smell and turn cloudy.

The sewage district that treats the company’s wastewater can also levy its own fines.

“We’ve had many spills with them in the past,” said Turri, but the April spill was one of the largest.

The district charged Plainview Milk $39,000 for added treatment costs to clean up the tens of thousands of pounds of raw cream. “And our board fined them another $60,000 to stop them,” Turri said.

In the months since the larger fine was given, the sewer plant hasn’t had problems from Plainview Milk, he said.