Jay Earnest Niday, Violating Clean Water Act, Iowa 2021

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Former Sioux City Wastewater Treatment Plant Superintendent Sentenced to Prison

The former Superintendent of the Sioux City Wastewater Treatment Plant, who conspired to cheat on environmental testing at the plant, was sentenced to three months in federal prison.

Jay Earnest Niday, age 63, from Sergeant Bluff, Iowa, received the prison term after a guilty plea to one count of conspiracy and one count of knowingly falsifying, tampering with, and rendering inaccurate a monitoring device or method required to be maintained under the Clean Water Act.

The evidence at Niday’s guilty plea and sentencing hearings showed that Niday was employed as the Superintendent of the Sioux City Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP). The WWTP is a large regional sewage treatment plant for wastewater from industrial, commercial, and residential sources throughout Siouxland, including Sergeant Bluff, Iowa, South Sioux City, Nebraska, North Sioux City, South Dakota, and Dakota Dunes, South Dakota.

Under a Clean Water Act (CWA) permit, the WWTP was required to treat wastewater before discharging it into the Missouri River, which has heavy local recreational use. Between March 15 and November 15 each year, when public use of the Missouri River was at its highest levels, the WWTP was also required to disinfect its wastewater to remove potentially dangerous human pathogens, including fecal coliform bacteria or E. coli.

Niday and others knowingly withheld from the Iowa Department of Natural Resources (IDNR) serious problems with the WWTP’s new treatment process, known as “the MLE process.” Niday and others concealed this fundamental problem with the MLE process from the IDNR.

Niday and others employed a fraudulent testing procedure that ensured the WWTP would always pass its effluent tests for fecal coliform, E. coli, and TRC. Jay Earnest Niday, the former Superintendent of the Sioux City Wastewater Treatment Plant, was sentenced to three months in federal prison on April 1, 2021, for violating the Clean Water Act.

Jay Earnest Niday, 63, from Sergeant Bluff, Iowa, was convicted of one count of conspiracy and one count of knowingly falsifying, tampering with, and rendering inaccurate a monitoring device or method required to be maintained under the Clean Water Act.