Agreement Reached With Horse Trainer Who Violated Clean Water Act

WALLKILL, NY — The government settled a lawsuit it filed against an Orange County horse racing training center for violating the Clean Water Act.

Damian Williams, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, said Friday that a consent decree was entered into settling a civil lawsuit against Mark Ford, Mark Ford Stables Inc., Mark Ford Stage Road Property Inc. and Ford Equine LTD in connection with the defendants’ construction and operation of a horse racing training facility on two adjacent properties in the town of Wallkill.

Ford and his related companies were accused of polluting and filling in wetlands without authorization or permits, improperly managing waste from the horses and failing to comply with requirements in the stormwater construction general permit.

Williams said the consent decree puts the defendants down a path to reversing the harm they caused to the environment by filling wetlands on their properties and failing to prevent pollutants from entering public waters.

“It should serve as a reminder that those who pollute will be held accountable for their actions,” he said.

The horse racing training center is located at 90 Slaughter Road and 482/484 Stony Ford Road in Wallkill.

The lawsuit said the defendants destroyed existing federal wetlands and rerouted streams in the course of building the center. The government also said a concentrated animal feeding operation did not have a permit and allowed horse wash water and process wastewater to be discharged into waters of the United States.

Ford and the other defendants, through the consent decree, admit to and accept responsibility for:

• Using mechanized land-clearing and filling equipment to discharge fill into 18.1 acres of federal jurisdictional wetlands and a U.S. tributary.
• Altering about 310 linear feet of a creek on the northern half of the Slaughter Road site and about 1,460 linear feet of the southern side.
• Discharging fill material into about 1.86 acres of wetlands at the Ford Equine Site and rerouted about 900 linear feet of a stream, having never obtained authorization from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
• Operating a medium concentrated animal feeding operation without permits or following regulations.
• Not complying with a general permit governing the discharge of stormwater during construction activity, without erosion or sediment controls or required monthly inspections.

In addition to the payment of a $200,000 civil penalty, the consent decree requires the defendants to create or restore about 18 acres of wetlands on their property, to restore two streams to their pre-fill configurations, to take additional measures to ensure the long-term success of the defendants’ restoration work and to come into compliance with federal concentrated animal feeding operation regulations.

Notice of the proposed consent decree will be published in the Federal Register, and the public will have the opportunity to submit comments for a period of at least 30 days before it is submitted for the court’s approval.