Court fines feedlot over canal waste

TALAS — The Talas District Court yesterday fined a feedlot company in the lower Talas valley for discharging waste into irrigation canals, and ordered it to stop the discharges and clean the affected channels.

Judge Gulmira Saparova found that the company, Kyzyl-Tuu Agro, had let runoff from its cattle pens drain into two canals that supply farms downstream. Farmers had complained for two seasons of fouled water and dead fish in the channels, and samples taken by inspectors last summer showed high levels of nitrates and fecal bacteria. The judge set the fine at 450,000 som.

Lawyers for the company argued that the canals were polluted by many users and that the samples could not be attributed to the feedlot. The judge rejected the argument, citing inspectors' records of a pipe running from the pens to the nearer canal. The company said it would consider an appeal.

Saparova, who has sat on the court since 2006, has heard several environmental cases. In 2011 she ordered a construction company to clear an unlicensed dump on the Talas River floodplain. Environmental lawyers say such judgments against companies with good connections remain rare.