A report released by the group Environment Iowa lists Cargill Meat Solutions’ pork processing plant in Ottumwa as the state’s number one disposer of toxic chemicals into waterways.
In 2012, Cargill disposed of more than two-million-eight-hundred-thousand-pounds (2,800,000 pounds) of chemicals into the Lower Des Moines River. Cargill’s Director of Communications, Mike Martin, says his company takes environmental stewardship very seriously.
Environment Iowa’s senior attorney, John Rumpler (Rump-ler), disagrees, saying discharge from companies like Cargill does hurt aquatic life by causing large blooms of algae.
Of all industrial plants nationwide, Environment Iowa states the Ottumwa facility is the ninth largest polluter of watersheds. The report was released by Environment Iowa in hopes of eliciting public support for a rule change to the Clean Water Act, that would expand the EPA’s jurisdiction beyond navigable waterways to seasonal streams and wetlands.
