SIOUX CITY, Iowa (AP) - An Iowa wastewater treatment plant official has pleaded guilty to manipulating water sample test results to ensure plant discharges into the Missouri River met federal requirements.
Sixty-three-year-old Jay Niday, the former superintendent of Sioux City’s treatment facility, entered his pleas Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Sioux City to charges of conspiracy and falsifying or providing inaccurate information, The Sioux City Journal reports.
Former shift supervisor Patrick Schwarte pleaded guilty in January 2019 to the same two charges. Both men are awaiting sentencing.
Court documents say Niday and Schwarte instructed other plant operators to raise chlorine levels added to wastewater on days that E. coli samples were taken. The elevated chlorine level would produce test samples showing plant discharges met federal limits for levels of fecal coliform and E. coli. Once the samples were taken, chlorine added to the city’s wastewater was reduced to levels unlikely to disinfect discharged water enough to meet those limits.
Niday told state investigators that administering the smaller levels of chlorine saved the city at least $100,000 in one year.
The city dismissed Niday and Schwarte in June 2015. No other plant employees have been charged.
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