United States v. Old Dutch Mustard Company, Inc., d/b/a Pilgrim Foods Company, et al.

On January 17, 2025, prosecutors filed an information and plea agreements, charging The Old Dutch Mustard Company, d/b/a Pilgrim Foods Company (Old Dutch), along with company owner and president Charles Santich, with violating the Clean Water Act (33 U.S.C. §§ 1311(a) and 1319(c)(2)(A)).

Old Dutch manufactured vinegar and mustard products, generating acidic wastewater during the process. Much of this wastewater consisted of spilled or leaked vinegar, or discarded vinegar that did not meet specifications. Old Dutch did not have a permit to discharge process wastewater. Instead, it stored the process wastewater in tanks and a trucking company hauled one or two truckloads of the wastewater off-site daily to the Rochester Publicly Owned Treatment Works (POTW). Old Dutch paid the trucking company for transporting each load. A second wastewater stream consisted of stormwater that became acidic after flowing through areas of the facility (especially the tank farm) where vinegar spilled. Old Dutch also paid the trucking company to haul the acidic stormwater to the POTW.

Santich decided to have workers discharge some of the wastewater to a manmade ditch formed by an abandoned railroad bed at the top of a hill behind the facility, from which the wastewater would flow into the Souhegan River, thereby reducing costs. In May 2017, Santich hired an excavation company to extend an underground pipe to the top of the hill behind the facility. He then directed an employee to repeatedly pump wastewater through the underground pipe to the abandoned railroad bed. Once the process wastewater or contaminated stormwater discharged at the top of the hill, it flowed to the river. Old Dutch did not have an NPDES or any other permit to discharge pollutants into the river.

In March 2021, Santich directed the same excavation company to install a sump at the corner of the tank farm area that collected the acidic stormwater and could pump it directly up the hill through the buried pipe. Similarly, during the Fall of 2022, Santich hired the excavation company to clean out the undergrowth in the manmade ditch at the top of the hill and line it with riprap to create a better drainage ditch and facilitate the flow of wastewater to the river.

On August 2, 2023, EPA agents executed a search warrant at the Old Dutch facility and witnessed this illegal activity. Agents observed liquid that smelled like vinegar discharging from the end of the underground pipe into the riprap-lined ditch. The wastewater discharge had a pH of 3.6. The agents then conducted a dye test starting at the sump outside the corner of the tank farm area. The dye discharged from the underground pipe at the top of the hill and flowed along the riprap-lined drainage ditch and down to the river.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Criminal Investigation Division conducted the investigation.