A chicken processing company has agreed to pay $65 million to neighbors who charged that its wastewater contaminated their drinking water.
A Delaware state court judge approved the settlement after residents in Millsboro, about 40 miles south of Dover, claimed that nitrates in discharges from a Mountaire Farms chicken processing plant were getting into their drinking water. The situation was caused by “a 2017 failure at the facility,” according to Delaware Public Media.
In a parallel federal case, a judge previously ordered $140 million worth of improvements to the plant’s wastewater system. Mountaire also had settled with a separate group of Millsboro residents in early 2020.
The problem allegedly was caused by Mountaire spraying nitrogen-rich wastewater onto nearby farm fields as fertilizer. A lawyer for the plaintiffs claimed that this wastewater contained up to 10 times the federal limit for nitrogen.
One of the plaintiffs described how, when he came home from a hospital visit for gastrointestinal issues, he found bottled water from Mountaire on his doorstep, with a note warning him not to drink his tap water.
Mountaire denied wrongdoing in a statement, saying, “We’re ready to put this chapter behind us and forge a new relationship with our neighbors moving forward.”
