A federal complaint says Pilgrim Foods’ own monitoring identified unauthorized pollutant discharges on 1,728 days. Decades of warnings, consent decrees and required monitoring allegedly failed to stop acidic water from reaching a stream and the Souhegan River.
Pilgrim Foods · Clean Water ActTL;DR
- The United States alleges that Old Dutch Mustard Co., doing business as Pilgrim Foods, repeatedly released acidic process water and other pollutants from its vinegar and mustard plant into a nearby stream.
- According to the complaint, company monitoring identified unauthorized discharges on at least 1,728 of the 2,298 days between November 5, 2019, and February 19, 2026.
- At least 1,100 alleged discharge days had no rain event expected to produce stormwater, undercutting any suggestion that the problem occurred only during storms.
- The government alleges that the discharges reduced downstream aquatic biodiversity, diminished invertebrate populations, produced fungus growth and negatively affected fish in part of the Souhegan River.
- The facility had already been subject to federal and state enforcement. A separate criminal case concerned a hidden pipe that allegedly carried wastewater beyond required monitoring points; the company pleaded guilty and was sentenced in April 2026.
- The new civil complaint seeks an injunction and penalties of up to $68,445 per day for each violation. No court has yet decided the complaint’s civil allegations.
The case asks why a pollution problem documented in the 1990s allegedly remained active after permits, engineering reviews, continuous monitors and multiple enforcement orders.
Transparency notice: This article relies on the United States’ August 13, 2026 civil complaint. A complaint presents the government’s case; it is not a civil judgment. The filing incorporates company monitoring and self-reports, earlier agency findings, state allegations and a separate criminal prosecution. The current civil claims remain unproven unless admitted or established in court.
The Facts
The government’s central evidence isn’t a single bottle of discolored water. It is a multiyear record generated in large part by Pilgrim Foods’ own monitoring equipment.
Old Dutch Mustard Co., doing business as Pilgrim Foods, has operated a vinegar and mustard plant in Greenville since about 1972. Vinegar production converts ethanol into acetic acid and creates wastewater containing that acid. The complaint says ordinary vinegar produced at the plant is about 5 percent acetic acid, with a typical pH between 2 and 3. On the pH scale, lower numbers indicate greater acidity.
An unnamed stream passes through the property, mostly in underground culverts, then flows beneath Old Wilton Road and into the Souhegan River. Industrial stormwater from the plant’s western side is collected through a drainage system and discharged at Outfall 001, beneath the Mustard Building. The Souhegan ultimately joins the Merrimack River.
The facility has coverage under a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit, the federal permit system that controls pollutant discharges to water. Its industrial stormwater permit allows stormwater and certain specified non-stormwater flows. It does not authorize acidic process wastewater to be routed into the stream.
The data period runs from November 5, 2019, through February 19, 2026. The United States characterizes each of the 1,728 discharge days as a separate Clean Water Act violation. That characterization, and the total number of violations, remain issues for the court.
How the Water Reached the River
The complaint describes two routes. The current civil claims concern releases moving through the plant’s drainage system to the stream. A separate hidden-pipe route was addressed in a criminal prosecution and is included in the new complaint as compliance history, not as a basis for new civil relief.
Route alleged in the civil complaint
Hidden-pipe route described in the compliance history
The routes are simplified from the complaint. The filing says the hidden-pipe outlet was downstream of the stream’s junction with the Souhegan, so required monitoring at the facility would not detect those releases.
The monitoring system compared pH at an upstream stream location, within the plant’s drainage system at catch basin CBY17, and at a downstream stream location. Pilgrim Foods submitted the resulting data to the Environmental Protection Agency and certified its accuracy, according to the complaint.
191 days, 2019–2020
Pilgrim Foods reported that a broken underground wastewater pipe leaked low-pH material over roughly seven months. The complaint says violations occurred on 191 days, with downstream pH as low as 2.89.
Two days in June 2023
The company attributed discharges to open valves, wastewater overflowing from a tank and failed secondary containment. It reported pH as low as 3.28.
Eight days in April 2024
A break in a fire-suppression line allegedly sent excess water into the wastewater system. Pilgrim Foods reported pH as low as 2.76. The repaired area was about eight inches from a section that had failed in 2023.
Three days in January 2025
The company reported that inadequate storage capacity, after wastewater pickups weren’t arranged, led to low-pH discharges. The reported pH reached 3.43.
Decades of Warnings and Orders
The current case follows a record of environmental complaints, inspections and settlements extending across three decades. Consent decrees resolve claims through negotiated court orders; they do not necessarily establish every allegation that preceded them.
Fish kills, primarily involving longnose dace, were observed downstream from the stream’s entry into the Souhegan. According to the complaint, the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services concluded that contaminants from the stream caused the kills.
An EPA inspection found substantially lower pH and evidence of biological degradation downstream of the facility, the complaint says.
A federal consent decree required Pilgrim Foods to build secondary containment around its tank farm and permanently cease unpermitted discharges. The new complaint alleges that it did neither completely.
After inspectors found low-pH product leaking from two tanks, EPA ordered the company to stop unauthorized discharges, prepare corrective-action plans and begin intensive water monitoring. New Hampshire separately resolved allegations involving wastewater discharged to the ground, groundwater and unlined lagoons.
A state consent decree required five years of continuous monitoring and an engineering review. State regulators had alleged that roughly 1,000 feet of stream habitat was no longer suitable for aquatic life.
The monitoring period at the center of the new complaint allegedly recorded unauthorized discharges on about three of every four days.
State inspectors saw wastewater flowing toward the Souhegan from a ditch behind the plant. Federal investigators later discovered the underground pipe and observed active flow, according to the complaint.
Old Dutch Mustard pleaded guilty in the separate criminal case and was sentenced on April 9. The United States filed the present civil complaint on August 13.
What the Discharges Meant for the Water
The supplied complaint documents ecological consequences rather than injuries to named residents. It does not allege a drinking-water emergency, human illness or a quantified financial loss to the surrounding community.
For the stream itself, the government alleges substantial harm. The complaint says downstream samples showed reduced biodiversity among benthic invertebrates, the small animals living on or near the streambed, along with smaller populations of multiple invertebrate species. It also alleges fungus growth downstream that was absent upstream.
The alleged effects extended into the Souhegan. The government says low-pH water entering from the stream negatively affected fish populations in that stretch of the river. Those claims echo the historic fish kills and the state’s 2016 allegation that approximately 1,000 feet of stream had become unsuitable for aquatic life.
The documented stake in this case is a waterway repeatedly exposed to acidic flows, with the government alleging that the biological difference can be measured upstream and downstream of the plant.
The complaint attributes these ecological changes to Pilgrim Foods’ discharges. Causation is part of the government’s civil case and has not yet been decided in this proceeding.
A Permit That Allegedly Failed in Practice
The plant’s stormwater permit requires more than paperwork. It obligates operators to find and eliminate unauthorized non-stormwater flows, contain potential spills, maintain equipment, take prompt corrective action, map pollutant sources and disclose noncompliance.
“must immediately take all reasonable steps necessary to minimize or prevent the discharge of pollutants until a permanent solution is installed and made operational.”
Corrective-action language from the industrial stormwater permit, as quoted in paragraph 26 of the complaint.
The United States alleges failures at each layer. On at least 13 occasions between September 2020 and October 2023, the company reported low-pH releases without identifying a cause. Discharges continued for long periods after being detected. Secondary containment and other controls allegedly failed to keep acidic material out of the drainage system.
The site’s Stormwater Pollution Prevention Plan, or SWPPP, was also allegedly incomplete. EPA inspectors found an outfall from the parking lot in May 2025 that wasn’t shown on the plan. The roof of the Vinegar Building was omitted even though, according to the complaint, a pump failure later caused bacteria used in production to foam out of a tank and onto that roof. The foam liquefied, entered roof drains and moved through catch basins to the downstream monitoring point on three days in August 2025.
Annual reports from 2019 through 2024 allegedly omitted incidents of noncompliance. The complaint also says Pilgrim Foods gave incomplete responses, or no responses, to three EPA information requests in 2025. Missing information included waste-shipment volumes, storage capacity and the amount of material released during incidents the company had attributed to insufficient capacity or overtopping.
The Hidden Pipe and the Monitoring Blind Spot
The most direct challenge to the monitoring regime came from a route that the monitors couldn’t see. According to the complaint, Pilgrim Foods hired a contractor around 2015 to install an underground pipe running uphill behind the plant. The pipe was extended in 2017 toward an abandoned railroad bed, and wastewater and acidic stormwater were pumped through it into a ditch leading to the Souhegan River.
The filing alleges that the pipe’s end was covered with dirt and brush and that employees were told not to disclose it, including to the company’s environmental consultant. Further work in 2021 and 2022 allegedly installed a sump, modified plumbing and lined the ditch to facilitate the flow.
Because the outlet reached the Souhegan downstream from the mandated monitoring locations, those instruments could not detect the releases. The institutional consequence was specific: a compliance system built around upstream and downstream comparisons was bypassed.
The civil complaint says this conduct was prosecuted separately and that Old Dutch Mustard pleaded guilty and was sentenced on April 9, 2026. The supplied document does not identify the precise charge of conviction or describe the sentence. The government is not seeking new civil relief for the hidden-pipe discharges in this case, but cites them as part of the company’s compliance history, which may affect any penalty.
What Pilgrim Foods Reported…. and What Is Missing
The complaint contains numerous company explanations for individual events: broken pipes, open valves, inadequate wastewater pickups, failed containment, a ruptured fire-suppression line and a pump failure that sent foam onto a roof. Those reports matter because the government’s case does not rely exclusively on outside inspections.
They are not, however, a general response to the new lawsuit. The supplied source contains no answer from Pilgrim Foods, no denial of the 1,728-discharge calculation and no company account of current corrective work after February 2026. The company’s position on the civil claims therefore cannot be determined from this document.
The Civil Case
The United States brought four Clean Water Act claims. Each remains an allegation at this stage.
Unpermitted discharges
The government alleges at least 1,728 separate days on which pollutants entered federally protected waters without authorization.
Failure to find and stop releases
The complaint says Pilgrim Foods failed to evaluate for and eliminate unauthorized non-stormwater discharges under its permit.
Stormwater-management failures
Alleged violations include inadequate controls, delayed corrective action, an incomplete pollution-prevention plan and deficient annual reports.
Failure to provide information
The United States alleges that the company failed to submit information required by three EPA requests in 2025.
The government asks the court to order compliance and impose penalties of no more than $68,445 per day for each violation. That figure is a requested statutory ceiling, not an assessed fine. The complaint does not calculate a total, and multiplying the ceiling by the alleged discharge days would not account for judicial discretion, overlapping claims or other statutory penalty factors.
What the court has actually decided
Nothing in the supplied record shows a ruling on these civil claims. Filing a complaint begins the case; it does not establish liability. The court has not yet determined whether all 1,728 alleged discharges occurred, whether each constituted a separate violation, whether the alleged permit and reporting failures are proven, or what remedy would be appropriate.
What Remains Unresolved
The largest factual question is whether the government can prove the scale and continuing nature of the alleged releases. Its data window ends on February 19, 2026, while the complaint describes the violations as ongoing. The supplied document does not show conditions after that date.
The court must also resolve the extent to which Pilgrim Foods’ discharges caused the measured ecological changes, the adequacy of any repairs or operational changes, and the significance of the company’s earlier enforcement history when setting relief. The current source does not establish whether acidic flows have now stopped.
What a Legitimate Fix Looks Like
Editorial analysisThe permit and prior orders already describe the basic elements. A credible remedy would have to eliminate every process-water route into the stormwater system, repair or replace failure-prone plumbing, provide effective secondary containment and ensure enough wastewater storage and pickup capacity to prevent overtopping.
The compliance system would also need an accurate map of every roof drain, catch basin, outfall and potential release point. Monitoring would have to cover routes capable of bypassing existing instruments, while incident reports and EPA responses would need to disclose the complete record promptly.
Paper compliance alone would not answer the complaint. The meaningful test is whether upstream and downstream monitoring no longer records a recurring acidic difference and whether the stream’s biological community can recover.
What to Watch
- Pilgrim Foods’ formal response: whether the company contests the monitoring analysis, ecological allegations or claimed permit failures.
- EPA evidence: the underlying monitoring records, inspection materials and the event summary identified as Appendix B to the complaint.
- Corrective work: evidence that plumbing, containment, storage, drainage maps and discharge controls have materially changed since the monitoring period ended.
- The federal court: whether it orders immediate injunctive measures and, if liability is established, how it treats decades of prior enforcement when calculating penalties.
The decisive unresolved issue is measurable rather than rhetorical: whether acidic pollutants are still moving from the plant into the stream, and whether any remedy can be verified at every route to the Souhegan rather than only at the monitoring points the facility was already required to use.
The source document for this investigation is attached below.
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