NEW ORLEANS (AP) — The owners of the horse racing track in New Orleans have agreed to pay a $2.8 million penalty for letting horse manure and urine into the city’s drainage system for at least six years and to spend twice that on ending the discharges, federal prosecutors say.
The U.S. Justice Department described the fine to be paid by Churchill Downs Inc., owner of the Fair Grounds Race Course & Slots, as the largest ever paid by a “concentrated animal feeding” operation under the Clean Water Act, news outlets reported.
The agreement settles a federal complaint alleging that the Fair Grounds violated that law and the track’s state permit more than 250 times between 2012 and 2018.
“This consent decree will stop the flow of untreated process wastewater into the local sewer system, which leads to local waters used for fishing and ultimately Lake Pontchartrain, in a way