Iowa Department of Natural Resources
Environmental Services Division

For Immediate Release                                                   February 9, 2007

PLUGGED LINE LEADS TO MOUNT AYR MANURE SPILL

MEDIA CONTACT: Holly Vandemark at (712) 250-8645.

MOUNT AYR * A Mount Ayr producer is working to clean up a manure spill after a line plugged at his confinement site in Ringgold County Thursday.

Garry Bjustrom was flushing the shallow manure storage pits under a confinement building to a storage lagoon when a line plugged. The plugged line sent approximately 2,000 gallons of manure out of the confinement building. The manure flowed through a culvert to the other side of the road and onto the surface of a frozen half-acre pond. Bjustrom plugged the outlet from the pond, which drains to a grassed waterway. Bjustrom owns the pond, located about four miles south of Mount Ayr.

On Friday, Bjustrom removed the manure from the surface of the pond and land-applied the contaminated snow over a corn field. He will keep the pond outlet plugged and will sample the pond after the ice melts to ensure all manure has been removed.

 "We appreciate how quickly Mr. Bjustrom worked to contain and clean up this spill, and to contact us," said Holly Vandemark, an environmental specialist in the DNR's Atlantic field office.

Manure spills must be reported to the DNR within six hours of occurrence or discovery.

Writer: Jessie Brown

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