A local nursery owner’s suit against the Limestone County Farmer’s Co-op for allegedly allowing harmful chemicals to pollute the groundwater has been settled in the North District of U.S. District Court.
District Judge Lynwood Smith issued an amended order Friday saying Bill Strain’s suit against the co-op was “dismissed with prejudice” but under the condition that Strain receive the first payment of the settlement in no later than 45 days. If not received, Strain can reopen the suit.
Strain, who owns Strain & Sons Nursery on U.S. 31 South, contended in his complaint filed Oct. 31, 2006, that the co-op had released a large amount of chemicals into a tributary of Swan Creek, which feeds into the irrigation pond for his nursery, in violation of the federal Clean Water Act.
The co-op is a half-mile north and on the opposite side of U.S. 31 from Strain’s nursery.
The complaint further states, “During the April 2006 spill, a significant quantity of water containing chemical substances, including but not limited to Prowl“ 3.3 EC herbicide, was discharged by the defendants into Strain Pond.”
Among other chemicals the complaint said were detected in the Strain Pond were dicamba, picloram and atrazine, as well as 2,4-Dichloraphenoxyacetic acid—a defoliant that made up approximately 50 percent of the Vietnam War’s “Agent Orange.”
The complaint says that co-op owners pumped “thousands of gallons of contaminated water from the unnamed tributary…and acknowledged that they were the source of chemical substances that flowed into the Strain property and the pond.”
However, Strain’s complaint also covers incidents of alleged contamination that go back as far as 2001, when he said some container plants, which were watered from the pond, turned yellow and the leaves curled and he was unable to sell them.
The complaint said the contamination occurred when co-op employees rinsed equipment used to treat farm crops on the co-op site and the rinse water wasn’t contained and flowed into a culvert, which flows under U.S. 31 and into the tributary that feeds the pond.
Strain declined to comment on the settling of the case, saying that he had signed a “confidentiality agreement” not to discuss the settlement. He referred all questions to his attorney, Bruce Barze, who practices with the Birmingham firm of Balch & Bingham.
“The case was settled to the mutual satisfaction of all parties,” Barze said, citing the confidentiality agreement in declining to comment further.
Co-op Manager John Curtis also declined comment.
Alabama Department of Environmental Management spokesman Scott Hughes confirmed Friday that the agency had “ordered an assessment to see if there is an impact on groundwater.”
“We installed groundwater -monitoring wells and ordered the co-op to submit a plan, which was submitted in September and approved in October,” Hughes said. “ADEM established Feb. 8 as the date by which the plan was to be implemented and submitted to the department.”
Hughes said that “analytical data on impact” to the groundwater should be available to the public after Feb. 8.
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Suit against Co-op settled
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