Illinois hog farm will pay fines over manure spill

BUCKLEY, Ill. — An eastern Illinois hog farm has agreed to pay more than $81,000 in fines for spilling more than 200,000 gallons of manure in a creek and in the process killing tens of thousands of fish.

Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan’s office said in a new release Monday that the owners of R3E LLC will pay nearly $64,000 to the state Department of Natural Resources for the fish kill. The farm also will have to pay $17,500 to the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency.

The new release says a manure holding pond at the farm near Buckley spilled manure into Spring Creek and a tributary in July 2009. Buckley is about 40 miles northeast of Champaign.

The manure flowed downstream and killed more than 110,000 fish over a stretch of 19 miles.