Evangeline Enterprises LLC (Evangeline Training Center)
Outcome
Evangeline Enterprises agreed to pay $300,000 civil penalty and implement operational changes including permit acquisition, rain gutter installation, ditch cleaning, and wastewater sampling, resolving unpermitted discharges of manure and process wastewater from its 500+ horse training facility to the Vermilion River.
Details
Evangeline Enterprises LLC — Equine CAFO Unpermitted Discharge to Vermilion River (2018)
Outcome: Evangeline Enterprises agreed to pay $300,000 civil penalty split equally between the United States and Louisiana DEQ and implement corrective measures including state permit acquisition, rain gutter installation, ditch cleaning, best management practices, and wastewater sampling, resolving years of unpermitted discharges of horse manure and process wastewater from its training center to the Vermilion River.
Evangeline Enterprises LLC operated the Evangeline Training Center in Carencro, St. Landry Parish, Louisiana — a horse training facility housing over 500 horses. The scale of animal confinement — 500+ horses generating substantial volumes of manure and urine — classified the facility as a concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO) under Clean Water Act regulations, triggering requirements to obtain a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit for any discharge of process wastewater to waters of the state.
The facility discharged manure and process wastewater without the required permit, with discharges flowing through facility ditches and drainage channels to the Vermilion River, a waterway in the Atchafalaya Basin drainage in south-central Louisiana. EPA filed a formal complaint against Evangeline in October 2017, and the settlement was announced October 31, 2018.
Required corrective measures included obtaining a state NPDES permit for the facility's operations, installing rain gutters on barn facilities to prevent roof-runoff commingling with manure-contaminated waste streams, cleaning facility drainage ditches, implementing best management practices for manure management and storage, and establishing a sampling and monitoring program for discharges from the facility. The Vermilion River is an important waterway for the Cajun cultural and fishing community of south Louisiana, and nutrient and pathogen loading from equine CAFOs represents a documented water quality concern in the region.
Primary Source: Evangeline Enterprises LLC Settlement Information Sheet | US EPA
How Crucible Prevents This
A horse training facility with over 500 horses is a large-scale animal feeding operation subject to Clean Water Act NPDES requirements — a classification that horse operations frequently overlook because they don't identify as conventional livestock agriculture. Crucible's session-init MEMORY requiring documentation of CAFO regulatory status analysis, combined with a compliance calendar tracking NPDES permit application deadlines, would prevent the multi-year unpermitted operation that drove this enforcement action. The required operational changes — rain gutters, ditch cleaning, BMP implementation — are low-cost controls that voluntary compliance would have implemented years before federal enforcement.
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