On Aug. 22, the US EPA and US Dept. of Justice announced that Sterling Suffolk Racecourse LLC will pay a civil penalty of $1.25 million to resolve violations of the Clean Water Act at its Suffolk Downs racetrack facility in Revere and East Boston. The consent decree alleges that Suffolk allowed polluted wastewater, including horse manure, urine and bedding material, to discharge into Sales Creek, a tributary of Belle Isle Inlet and Boston Harbor. The company is also spending more than $3 million to prevent polluted water from entering nearby waterways and will perform three environmental projects worth approximately $742,000 that will provide water quality monitoring and protection efforts for more than 123 square miles of watershed. The Mystic River Watershed Association has been selected to manage a monthly water quality monitoring program intended to support environmental protection and restoration as part of these supplemental environmental projects.
