Iowa man convicted for dumping wastewater into river

SIOUX CITY, Iowa (AP) - A northwestern Iowa man charged for dumping gallons of wastewater into a river was convicted.

The Sioux City Journal reports (http://bit.ly/1ybEreq ) 57-year-old Michael Wolf, of Remsen, was charged in federal court in Sioux City on one count of discharging pollutant into a U.S. body of water. A sentencing hearing has not yet been scheduled.

The U.S. Attorney's Office says Wolf dumped about 845,000 gallons of untested wastewater and pollutant into a West Branch Floyd River tributary in October 2012 near Sioux Center.

The polluted water, which Wolf obtained from the Sioux-Preme Packing wastewater treatment lagoons, included agricultural waste. He was an employee at the pork processing plant and oversaw the facility's lagoons.

The Iowa Department of Natural Resources found that the dumping killed thousands of fish over an 11-mile stretch.

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Information from: Sioux City Journal, http://www.siouxcityjournal.com