SYRACUSE, N.Y. — A federal trial begins on Monday in a lawsuit that could determine whether one of Northern New York’s largest dairy operations has been illegally polluting the St. Lawrence River for years.
Center for Food Safety, a Washington, D.C.-based environmental group, filed suit against Wood Farms LLC in March 2023, alleging the Clayton dairy discharged manure and wastewater into Wheeler Creek and the St. Lawrence River more than 1,000 times since 2018. The farm, co-owned by Lyle Wood and Scott Bourcy, confines more than 3,000 dairy cows in Jefferson County, not far from where the river feeds into Lake Ontario.
The case centers on the farm’s National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit, a Clean Water Act requirement meant to keep animal waste out of public waterways. Center for Food Safety attorneys argue Wood Farms has repeatedly violated that permit by discharging manure and process wastewater during wet weather and winter months, when the ground can’t absorb runoff. Water sampling cited in the lawsuit found high levels of E. coli and total coliform bacteria in waters downstream of the farm.
“Massive factory farms like this rely on a business model that privatizes profits while socializing costs of pollution,” said Kingsly McConnell, staff attorney for Center for Food Safety. “Communities pay the price through contaminated drinking water, polluted rivers, algal blooms and declining fisheries.”
Wood Farms has pushed back on the allegations since the suit was filed. The farm’s owners have pointed to a New York Department of Environmental Conservation letter stating that three clay-lined lagoons on the property were evaluated and certified, with minimal expected impact on groundwater. The DEC has not taken enforcement action against the farm since 2014, according to past statements from Wood Farms’ legal team, and inspections conducted since the lawsuit began have not found permit violations.
Attorneys for Center for Food Safety say their own water testing tells a different story. Site testing conducted in October and December 2023 traced discharges reaching tributaries that flow into the St. Lawrence River and Lake Ontario back to the farm, according to the group. Wood Farms has disputed the methodology behind that testing.
The outcome matters well beyond Jefferson County. Lake Ontario and its watershed touch the edges of Central New York’s own water systems, and the same kinds of algal blooms tied to manure runoff have shown up in lakes across the broader Finger Lakes and Great Lakes region that Central New York residents rely on for drinking water and recreation. Industrial dairies like Wood Farms generate waste on a scale that rivals a small city, but without the wastewater treatment systems cities are required to have. When manure is stored improperly or over-applied to fields, it can carry nitrogen, phosphorus, pathogens and antibiotics into nearby streams and groundwater.
Dan Snyder, Director of the Environmental Enforcement Project at Public Justice, said the numbers behind the case point to a pattern rather than isolated incidents.
“While the Clean Water Act permit for this facility is supposedly a ‘no discharge’ permit, the facts on the ground show Wood Farms discharges manure and related pollutants every time it rains above a specific threshold,” Snyder said.
The St. Lawrence River carries deep historical and cultural weight in the region, tied to Indigenous communities and serving as a corridor for transportation, fishing and recreation. That significance is part of what’s driven the yearslong legal fight, according to Center for Food Safety, which has sued other large dairy operations across the country over water pollution and secured settlements requiring cleanup in past cases.
Center for Food Safety is asking the court to order Wood Farms to stop the alleged discharges, remediate environmental damage, come into compliance with the Clean Water Act and pay civil penalties.