Charles Santich, Pollutant Discharge, New Hampshire 2025

A New York man and Old Dutch Mustard Co., a mustard and vinegar manufacturing company, were sentenced today in federal court for knowingly discharging acidic water into the Souhegan River.

Charles Santich, 60, of New York, was sentenced to 18 months in federal prison and ordered to pay a $250,000 fine. Old Dutch Mustard Co., Inc., d/b/a Pilgrim Foods, Inc. (Old Dutch Mustard), was sentenced to pay a $1.5 million fine and to establish environmental compliance and ethics programs.

The Clean Water Act prohibits the discharge of any pollutant into navigable waters of the United States without a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit. According to the court documents and statements made in court, due to a long history of Clean Water Act non-compliance beginning in the 1980s, Old Dutch Mustard has been subject to several enforcement actions by the EPA, the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services (“NH DES”), and the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office.

Santich and his company sought to purposefully evade monitoring of the Unnamed Stream, which flows underneath and in front of the facility, eventually flowing into the Souhegan River. The Souhegan River is one of nineteen rivers that the State of New Hampshire has designated as an important natural resource.

“Throughout years of repeated civil and administrative attempts to encourage Santich and his company to follow the law, Santich lied to state and federal authorities and even purposefully built the illegal infrastructure needed to pump his manufacturing waste into New Hampshire’s waterways,” said U.S. Attorney Erin Creegan.

Santich was sentenced on February 2025 by U.S. District Court Judge Landya McCafferty. His scheme to evade monitoring and save on shipping costs by secretly pumping excess wastewater into the Souhegan River was uncovered in May 2017, when Santich hired an excavation company to extend an underground pipe to the top of a hill several hundred feet behind the facility.

The $1.5 million fine imposed on Old Dutch Mustard Co. is one of the largest environmental fines in New Hampshire history. The company was also ordered to establish environmental compliance and ethics programs to prevent similar incidents in the future.

Related Federal Cases