Tyson Poultry will pay a $2-million criminal fine for polluting a stream near its southwest Missouri plant. The pollution killed an estimated 108,000 fish. A federal judge ruled that Tyson had violated the Clean Water Act.
The incident occurred in May 2014, when a tank containing a highly acidic liquid food supplement sprang a leak. Tyson transported the supplement to a different plant, where it was “discharged into the sewers and flowed into the City of Monett municipal waste water treatment plant,” the Justice Department found. The company will also pay $500,000 to remedy the environmental effects of its actions, and will conduct specialized trainings at its many plants.
Tyson Poultry, a subsidiary of Tyson Foods, is the largest chicken producer in the country.