DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Attorney General Tom Miller says a judge has penalized a northwest Iowa pharmaceutical company $20,000 for wastewater violations at a storage lagoon in rural Sioux County.

 

Miller sued Sioux Pharm Inc. of Sioux Center in 2009 claiming it illegally discharged wastewater into surface and groundwater. The company makes a nutritional supplement from animal cartilage that is used to alleviate pain.

 

Miller says in a consent decree filed on Monday, Sioux County Judge Edward Jacobson order the company to permanently close the lagoon by removing the contents and leveling the site by Friday. The company has already closed the site and agreed to no longer apply the wastewater.

 

A telephone call on Wednesday to the company’s attorney, Lloyd Bierma of Sioux Center, was not immediately returned.