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Probation sentences handed down in Iowa ag pollution case

Ag/Outdoor, News

February 28th, 2019 by Ric Hanson

DAVENPORT, Iowa (AP) — An Iowa farm and its managers have been given probation in a water pollution case. Federal prosecutors for Iowa said in a news release Thursday that Etcher Family Farms, near New London in southeastern Iowa, has agreed to five years of organizational probation and a $50,000 fine.

Farm owner Scott Allen Etcher was sentenced Tuesday to five years of probation. Farm manager, 29-year-old Benjamin Allen McFarland, was sentenced to two years of probation.

Etcher and McFarland pleaded guilty in October to violating the Clean Water Act. Officials say that in July 2015 at the Etcher Family Farms facility, McFarland discharged agricultural waste that went directly into an unnamed tributary to Big Creek. Officials say the discharge was committed under the direct supervision of Etcher.