A Pesticide Producer in North Dakota Hid Its Operations From Federal Regulators for a Full Year
What It Costs When Nobody Is Watching
Page, North Dakota has a population of roughly 230 people. It sits in Cass County, surrounded by flat farmland and sky. The people who live there are not far from the kinds of operations that spray, store, and distribute the chemicals used to keep crops alive and pests dead. They trust, or at least have to trust, that someone in a federal office somewhere is keeping a list. That is the entire premise of pesticide regulation in this country: you tell us what you are making and how much, and we make sure it is safe and legal.
Tall Towers Aviation, Inc. did not do that. For the entirety of 2024, the EPA had no legally required documentation from this facility about what pesticides it was producing, what it had produced the year before, or what it had sold and distributed into the surrounding region. That is not an abstraction. Pesticides are toxic by design. That is what they are for. The federal reporting system exists because the government, at some point, acknowledged that communities deserve to know when poison is being manufactured and moved through their area.
The workers who may have handled these products at this facility, the farmworkers who may have applied them in adjacent fields, the families whose groundwater sits beneath that land, the neighbors who breathe the air around that address on 17th Street Southeast: none of them had an advocate in the regulatory record for 2024. The annual form that should have told the EPA what was happening at EPA Establishment Number 73206-ND-1 simply did not exist.
The settlement fixes the paperwork problem. It does not fix the year that passed without oversight. Tall Towers certified after the fact that the violation has been corrected. The EPA took that certification and moved on. For a fine of $1,400, the matter is officially closed. There is no public accounting of what was produced during the unreported year, no disclosure of what was sold, and no public record of where any of it went. The ledger the law demands was never written. The settlement does not require it to be written now.
That line from the regulation is worth sitting with. The filing threshold is not production. It is registration. If you hold a federal registration as a pesticide-producing establishment, you file. No exceptions. No minimums. No thresholds to cross. The rule is simple because the stakes are real. Tall Towers crossed the threshold for registration and then ignored the obligation that came with it. The EPA found the gap through a records review, not through a complaint or an incident. That means no alarm was ever triggered by what happened on the ground. The system caught this through paperwork alone, which also means the system is only as strong as the paperwork.
Straight From the Document: What the EPA Actually Found and What Tall Towers Actually Agreed To
The settlement agreement is a short document, but every paragraph carries legal weight. Here is what the government put in writing, and what each passage means in plain terms.
“The EPA reviewed its records and determined that Respondent did not submit the annual Form pursuant to 40 C.F.R. §167.85(d) and section 7(c)(1) of FIFRA, 7 U.S.C. § 136(e), on or before March 1, for calendar year 2024.”
- This is the core finding. The EPA did not receive a tip, a complaint, or an environmental incident report. It found the violation by checking its own filing records, which means the only accountability mechanism that worked here was internal bookkeeping, not community reporting or field inspection.
- The specific form referenced, EPA Form 3540-16, requires the company to identify itself, identify the establishment, name authorized signatories, and report specific pesticide production data. None of that information existed in the EPA’s system for Tall Towers for 2024.
“Section 7(c) of FIFRA, 7 U.S.C. § 136e(c), requires any producer operating a registered pesticide-producing establishment to inform the EPA of the types and amounts of pesticides (and, if applicable, active ingredients used in producing pesticides), which it is producing; which it has produced during the past year; and which it has sold or distributed during the past year.”
- The law requires three categories of disclosure: current production, production during the past year, and sales and distribution during the past year. All three were absent from the EPA’s record for Tall Towers in 2024. The public, regulators, and neighboring communities had no access to any of this information for the relevant period.
- The phrase “active ingredients used in producing pesticides” is significant. Active ingredients are the chemically potent components that make a pesticide work. Their absence from the regulatory record means there is no publicly accessible documentation of what toxic compounds were processed at this facility during the unreported year.
“Respondent neither admits nor denies the allegations set forth above, but Respondent admits that the EPA has jurisdiction over this matter. For the purposes of this proceeding, Respondent waives (i) any right to contest the allegations in this Agreement, (ii) any rights or defenses Respondent has or may have for this matter to be resolved in federal court, including but not limited to any right to a jury trial, and (iii) any right to appeal or challenge the lawfulness of any final order ratifying this Agreement.”
- The “neither admits nor denies” language is standard in EPA settlements. It allows corporations to close enforcement actions without creating a formal legal admission that could be used against them in civil suits. Tall Towers is not on record saying it broke the law, even though it paid to settle the allegation that it did.
- By waiving the right to a jury trial and the right to appeal, Tall Towers accepted this outcome permanently and without further process. The matter is legally sealed for $1,400. The company will not face this specific charge in a courtroom.
“Full payment of the penalty set forth in this Agreement resolves Respondent’s liability only for federal civil penalties for the violations and facts alleged herein. This Agreement and the Final Order do not affect the right of the EPA or the United States to pursue injunctive or other equitable relief or criminal sanctions for any violation of law.”
- The $1,400 payment only closes the civil penalty portion of this specific violation. The EPA explicitly reserved the right to take further action, including criminal enforcement, if other violations surface. This clause exists because settlements are not clean slates.
- Paragraph 14 reinforces this further, stating the EPA reserves all rights to pursue enforcement for “any other past, present, or future violations.” The settlement closes one door. It does not foreclose investigation into what was actually produced or distributed during the unreported period.
Who Bears the Cost When Pesticide Oversight Disappears
Public Health
Pesticide production reporting exists because exposure to these chemicals causes documented harm to human health. When a producer goes unreported, that chain of accountability breaks entirely.
- The annual EPA Form 3540-16 captures active ingredients used in pesticide production. Without it, neither the EPA nor the public has a legal record of which toxic chemical compounds were handled at the Page, North Dakota facility during 2024. Active ingredients in pesticides include organophosphates, pyrethroids, and other compounds with established links to neurological damage, endocrine disruption, and cancer at sufficient exposure levels.
- Agricultural aviation operations like Tall Towers Aviation apply pesticides aerially. Aerial application carries a higher risk of pesticide drift, where chemical particles travel beyond the target area and land on neighboring properties, waterways, and people. Without knowing what was produced or distributed in 2024, there is no documented basis for any drift-related health inquiry for that period.
- Rural North Dakota communities have higher rates of pesticide exposure than urban populations due to proximity to agricultural operations. Page is a town of roughly 230 people with limited access to environmental health resources or legal representation. Residents depend entirely on federal oversight systems to protect them from unreported chemical activity near their homes.
- The settlement does not require Tall Towers to retroactively disclose what was produced or distributed in 2024. That information remains outside the public record. Any resident seeking to understand their potential exposure during that year has no government document to consult.
Economic Inequality
The structure of this enforcement action reflects a familiar pattern: the cost of non-compliance, when it is finally imposed, is calibrated to cause no meaningful hardship to the company responsible.
- The total civil penalty is $1,400. For an aviation operation holding a federally registered pesticide-producing establishment, this is an operationally negligible figure. A single aerial application contract can generate more than this amount. The fine does not function as a deterrent; it functions as a retroactive licensing fee for the year of non-compliance.
- Tall Towers is explicitly prohibited from deducting the fine as a business expense for federal, state, or local income tax purposes (paragraph 12 of the agreement). This is the only financial mechanism in the settlement with any punitive edge, and it applies only to the penalty itself, not to the broader financial benefit the company derived from not investing time and resources in compliance during 2024.
- The “expedited settlement” process, authorized under 40 C.F.R. §§ 22.13(b) and 22.18(b), is specifically designed for lower-penalty cases to be resolved quickly and without a hearing. This efficiency is reasonable for administrative purposes, but it also means no public evidentiary proceeding ever occurred. No witness testified. No community member had an opportunity to speak on the record about the year of missing oversight.
- If Tall Towers fails to pay the $1,400 within 30 days, penalties escalate sharply: interest at the IRS underpayment rate, enforcement expenses including attorney fees, and a 20% quarterly non-payment penalty. The enforcement mechanism is more aggressive for non-payment of the fine than the original fine was for a year of regulatory non-compliance.
The Number That Ends This Story
Who Is Responsible, Who Is Watching, and What You Can Do
The settlement identifies specific parties and oversight bodies. Here is who holds accountability in this matter and what pressure points exist for anyone who wants to push further.
Parties Named in the Settlement
- Tall Towers Aviation, Inc., EPA Establishment No. 73206-ND-1, 14269 17th Street Southeast, Page, North Dakota 58064. Contact on record: talltowers@ictc.com. The President signed the agreement (signature present in document; full printed name partially legible).
- EPA Region 8 Enforcement: The Enforcement Case Officer of record is Sherrie Kinard (kinard.sherrie@epa.gov). The complainant signatory is David Cobb, EPA Region 8, who signed digitally on January 21, 2026. The Regional Hearing Clerk for Region 8 received the filing the same day at 1:31 PM.
Regulatory Watchlist
- EPA Region 8 (Denver, CO): Covers North Dakota. The body responsible for monitoring, investigating, and enforcing FIFRA compliance at facilities like Tall Towers. Contact the Region 8 office to request FIFRA compliance records for any registered pesticide-producing establishment in the region.
- EPA Office of Pesticide Programs (OPP): The national office that administers FIFRA registration and data collection. The annual production data required under 40 C.F.R. § 167.85 flows into this office’s national database. Request public records showing the history of Form 3540-16 filings for any establishment using the EPA’s FOIA process.
- North Dakota Department of Agriculture (NDDA): The state-level agency responsible for pesticide applicator licensing and agricultural aviation regulation in North Dakota. Aerial pesticide applicators like Tall Towers must hold state licenses. Contact the NDDA to verify Tall Towers’ current applicator license status and compliance history.
- U.S. Department of Justice, Environment and Natural Resources Division: Under paragraph 11 of the settlement, the EPA and the United States retained the right to pursue criminal sanctions for any violation of law. If evidence of broader misconduct emerges, this is the enforcement body with criminal jurisdiction.
Organize and Resist
- File a FOIA request with EPA Region 8 for all Form 3540-16 submissions from Tall Towers Aviation, Inc. (EPA Est. 73206-ND-1) for every year on record. Cross-reference submission dates against the March 1 deadline to determine whether 2024 was an isolated failure or part of a pattern.
- Connect with Cass County and surrounding community organizations in North Dakota that monitor agricultural chemical use. Groups like Dakota Rural Action (a South Dakota-based but regionally active farm advocacy organization) work on pesticide accountability and can help coordinate community pressure for transparent disclosures from facilities operating near residential areas.
- Demand retroactive production disclosure by contacting EPA Region 8 directly and requesting that the agency require Tall Towers to provide a retroactive account of what was produced and distributed in 2024, as a condition of continued registration. The current settlement does not require this; public pressure can push the EPA to make it a condition of future compliance monitoring.
- Support federal FIFRA reform efforts that would increase civil penalties for reporting violations to levels that function as actual deterrents. At $1,400, the current fine structure provides no financial incentive for compliance beyond the minor administrative cost of filing the form in the first place. Contact your congressional representatives and demand a FIFRA penalty structure that reflects the public health stakes of pesticide oversight.
The source document for this investigation is attached below.
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