CONCORD – A New York man and Old Dutch Mustard Co., a mustard and vinegar manufacturing company, pleaded guilty in federal court to knowingly discharging acidic water into the Souhegan River, Acting U.S. Attorney Jay McCormack and Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Adam Gufstafson of the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division announce.
Charles Santich, 59, of New York, and Old Dutch Mustard Co., Inc., d/b/a Pilgrim Foods, Inc. (“Old Dutch Mustard”) pleaded guilty to knowing discharging a pollutant without a permit. U.S. District Court Judge Landya McCafferty scheduled sentencing for June 23, 2025.
The Clean Water Act “CWA” prohibits the discharge of any pollutant into navigable waters of the United States without a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit. Due to a long history of CWA non-compliance dating back to 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. As a result of these actions, EPA and NH DES have required continuous monitoring of an Unnamed Brook that flows underneath and in front of the facility, eventually flowing into the Souhegan River. The Souhegan River is one of nineteen New Hampshire rivers that the State of New Hampshire has designated as an important natural resource.
Charles Santich is the president and owner of Old Dutch Mustard, a New York corporation with a manufacturing facility in Greenville, New Hampshire. Old Dutch Mustard manufactures vinegar and mustard products, which generates acidic wastewater. In addition, stormwater flows through the property, including an outdoor area where the company stores their product in large tanks. Both the wastewater and stormwater at Old Dutch Mustard becomes acidic and is categorized as a pollutant under the CWA, and Old Dutch Mustard did not have the necessary permit to discharge the acidic wastewater or stormwater into the environment. Instead, Old Dutch was required to store the polluted water in tanks and pay a trucking company to haul all the wastewater off-site to a publicly owned treatment plant.
Beginning in the spring of 2015, Santich hired an excavation company to bury a pipe from the Old Dutch Mustard facility to discharge the acidic wastewater and stormwater in the general direction of the Souhegan River along an abandoned railroad bed. This discharge point was downstream of, and not detectible by, the continuous environmental monitoring required by the EPA and State of New Hampshire.
Santich directed Old Dutch Mustard employees to repeatedly pump acidic wastewater and stormwater through the underground pipe to the abandoned railroad bed. Santich also directed employees not to tell anyone about the pipe.
In May of 2023, state inspectors from NH DES discovered wastewater from the facility, with low pH and smelling of vinegar, flowing from a manmade ditch at the top of the hill on the Old Dutch Mustard property into the Souhegan River. In August 2023, EPA agents executed a search warrant at the Old Dutch Mustard facility and observed liquid that smelled like vinegar discharging from the end of the underground pipe into the ditch. The wastewater discharge had a low pH of 3.6. The agents then conducted a dye test. The dye discharged from the underground pipe at the top of the hill and flowed along the drainage ditch and down to the river.
EPA’s Criminal Investigation Division investigated this case. Valuable assistance was provided by the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services and the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office. Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew T. Hunter and Trial Attorney Ronald A. Sarachan of the Environment and Natural Resources Division are prosecuting the case with the assistance of EPA Senior Regional Criminal Enforcement Counsel Dianne G. Chabot.