2 San Marcos Dairy Operators Plead Guilty to Polluting Creek

The operators of a San Marcos dairy frequently criticized by state water quality officials admitted Monday that they violated federal environmental protection laws by discharging barn waste into a creek earlier this year.

U.S. Atty. Peter K. Nunez announced that dairy owner Jacob Wilgenburg, 64, pleaded guilty to a felony charge of violating the federal Clean Water Act by illegally dumping contaminated milk-barn runoff into a pipe leading into San Marcos Creek between February and April.

Wilgenburg’s 25-year-old son Edward, manager of the 500-cow dairy, pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor violations of the Clean Water Act. The pair agreed to pay a $45,000 fine and reimburse the state Regional Water Quality Control Board $5,000 for investigative expenses. Both face possible imprisonment when sentenced Jan. 19.

Jacob Wilgenburg faces a maximum of three years in prison for his conviction on the felony charge. His son could be imprisoned for two years.

In return for their pleas, additional charges made in a nine-count indictment issued in July were dismissed, prosecutors said.

First Convictions

Government officials say the pleas mark the first convictions in a case tackled by San Diego’s Hazardous Waste Task Force, a criminal investigative group formed in June to beef up local prosecutions of those who violate laws regulating the use and disposal of hazardous waste.

A week ago, the second case produced by task force investigators was filed when a federal grand jury indicted two California businesses and a truck driver on charges of dumping sulfuric acid into a culvert leading to Santa Margarita Estuary north of Oceanside.

Government officials applauded the resolution of the Wilgenburg case and said they are hopeful the convictions will send a message to other San Diego County dairy owners, who have frequently been under fire from regulators for sloppy waste-management practices.

“I’m really pleased,” Assistant U.S. Atty. Charles S. Crandall said. “We’re talking about the possibility of jail for these guys and also a fairly stiff monetary penalty for what is a small to mid-size dairy. It should make an impression.”

Crandall added that Jacob Wilgenburg is the first defendant in the San Diego judicial district to be subject to the new, stiffer penalty provisions in the Clean Water Act that became effective in January. The changes upgraded the penalty for deliberate, illegal discharges into the nation’s surface waters from a misdemeanor to a felony, Crandall said.

The Wilgenburgs’ attorney, Michael Lipman, could not be reached for comment on the case. A woman who answered the telephone Monday at the dairy on Rancheros Drive said the family had nothing to say about the pleas.

Illegal Discharges

In an indictment released in July, the dairymen were accused of making seven illegal discharges of barn runoff into San Marcos Creek, which leads to Lake San Marcos, runs through the sensitive Batiquitos Lagoon in Carlsbad and ultimately flows into the Pacific.

Milk-barn effluent, generated when cows are cleaned after milking and the barn is hosed down, is heavily contaminated with bovine feces, urine and other substances and can also carry viruses that cause illness in humans. State regulators estimate that the 20-acre Wilgenburg farm produces as much waste as a community of 8,500 people.

Of particular concern to officials charged with protecting water quality is the high level of “biological oxygen demand” characteristic of the barn runoff. That demand measures the amount of oxygen necessary to break down organic matter in the effluent. When a great deal of oxygen is needed for that purpose, it depletes the supply available for living organisms in the creek or lagoon where the effluent winds up.

Samples of creek water near the dairy after the dumping found that the oxygen demand levels were up to almost 11 times as high as those typical of untreated human waste, Nunez said.

Watchdog Agency

The Regional Water Quality Control Board, the state’s watchdog agency on water quality issues, has been growing increasingly active on the issue of dairy waste management in recent years. The Wilgenburg dairy, along with other farms in the county, has been warned off and on since the early 1970s about illegal discharges and informed of proper methods of keeping runoff from leaving the property.

But efforts by regional board staff members to penalize dairies for discharge violations have generally been rejected by board members, who have favored negotiations as a way to bring the farms into compliance. Currently, board staff members are meeting with dairy owners and helping them design waste storage ponds and other structures to prevent the escape of contaminants.

David Barker, a senior engineer with the board, said he viewed the convictions as “an equitable settlement” of the Wilgenburg case.

“I would say that any waste discharger should take note that under certain circumstances it is a felony to discharge waste into surface waters and that there are heavy penalties for doing so,” Barker said.

Barker added that the majority of the county’s dairy farms are out of compliance to some degree with the waste discharge requirements imposed by the board. “Under certain circumstances,” he said, other dairymen in the county could be subject to charges similar to those against the Wilgenburgs. He declined to comment on the existence of any ongoing investigations.