WARNING: Images contained in this story may be disturbing to some
BAGLEY— The Lestina Family is out of their home after finding four inches of bloody water in their basement.
As it turns out, the meat locker business next door wasn’t getting rid of the animal blood the right way.
Dahl Meat was sending some animal blood drawn down a floor drain instead of keeping it all in a holding tank.
“We’re taking responsibility of it even though it wasn’t our fault,” said Kaitlin Dahl, co-owner of Dahl’s Meat Locker.
No one from the state or county ever told them they were doing anything wrong until now, according to the Dahl family.
“We didn’t know about it and all of our inspections had passed from the sanitation in Guthrie County to IDALS to DNR,” Kaitlin Dahl said.
The Dahls immediately stopped kills to install a water disposal system that is up to Iowa Code standards, but the Lestinas are still out of their house because drainage water is continuing to back up.
The Iowa Department of Natural Resources says this situation is unlike anything they’ve seen before.