Picture provided by the City of Sanborn and Iowa Capital Dispatch
Sanborn, Iowa (Iowa Capital Dispatch) — A cheese manufacturer is suing the city of Sanborn for water contamination that allegedly infiltrated the plant and caused $4 million in damages.
The Minnesota dairy cooperative Associated Milk Producers Inc., or AMPI, is suing not only the City of Sanborn in federal court, but also the company hired by the city to clean the municipal water tower, Maguire Iron of South Dakota.
AMPI operates an 80-year-old plant in Sanborn where each day, it produces 280,000 pounds of cheese. As part of the production process, the plant consumes 300,000 gallons of water each day.
In late 2021, the city hired Maguire Iron to clean, maintain, and sandblast the municipal water tower. In the summer of 2022, the lawsuit claims, the city drained the water tower, allowing Maguire to begin its work inside and around the structure.
AMPI alleges Maguire negligently performed its sandblasting of the tower’s interior by using jagged shards of a toxic black sandblasting aggregate commonly called “black magic.” Maguire allegedly used the aggregate to clean the tower’s interior surfaces without first sealing the intake and outflow pipes that route water in and out of the tower.
That alleged failure to seal the pipes resulted in “sandblasting aggregate and other spent cleaning debris entering the city’s water system and subsequently infiltrating the Sanborn plant,” the lawsuit claims.
When Maguire finished its work, city officials attempted to refill the tower and noticed sandblasting aggregate flowing out of a standpipe valve connected to the tower. City workers then spent several hours attempting to flush the aggregate out of the pipes and then resumed their efforts to refill the tower, the lawsuit alleges.
When that work was completed, the city had the water tested for bacteria. When the test indicated there was no bacteria present, the city allegedly opened the valves from the tower and restored the flow of water to not just the AMPI plant but to other businesses and homes that rely on the tower.
Within days, officials at the plant allegedly discovered large amounts of sandblasting aggregate in its water, its equipment, and in the cheese that had recently been processed.
by Clark Kauffman, Iowa Capital Dispatch
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