The state Natural Resources Department has punished three companies in northern Iowa, saying they violated environmental laws.
The Mason City Globe Gazette reports that the department ordered Smith Ag Inc. to pay nearly $5,600 for an October 2014 manure discharge into a Little Cedar River tributary.
The department also told Golden Grain Energy LLC to pay $10,000 for air-quality violations at its Mason City-based ethanol production facility. And the department ordered M.G. Waldbaum Co., of Minnetonka, Minnesota, to pay $8,000 for permit violations at its egg processing facility in Britt.
The newspaper reports that the orders were issued to avoid litigation.
