Organic foodmaker fined $22,000 by ecology

A maker of organic granola bars and cereals in Blaine, Wash., has been fined $22,000 for water quality violations, mostly by releasing acidic wastewater into a city sewer system, the state Department of Ecology announced. Nature’s Path Foods, based in Richmond, British Columbia, violated its wastewater permit 39 times over a two-year period that ended in July, according to Ecology.  The company violated permit conditions for flow, dissolved oxygen levels and suspended solids, according to Ecology. The agency, however, singled out acidic wastewater as the primary problem.