BOARDMAN, Ore. — The owners of a defunct dairy in Eastern Oregon are asking state regulators to withdraw recent violations of the facility’s water quality permit, arguing they happened on adjacent land managed by another company.

It is another chapter in the tumultuous history of the property, about 13 miles south of Boardman.

Established in 2017 as Lost Valley Farm, the site was once authorized to operate with up to 30,000 cows but was shut down a year later, plagued by mismanagement, environmental missteps and bankruptcy by former owner Greg te Velde.

The dairy was sold in 2019 to the Easterday family, which sought to reopen it with an infusion of cash to upgrade manure storage and application systems.

Four years later, there are still no animals on the site and the state Department of Agriculture and Department of Environmental Quality have hit the pause button on issuing a new Confined Animal Feeding Operation, or CAFO, permit at the dairy.

In the meantime, Cody Easterday was sentenced to 11 years in prison for defrauding Tyson Foods out of $233 million. He also admitted to cheating Segale Properties, a Tukwila, Wash., real estate development company, out of $11 million as part of the scheme.

The dairy has since been taken over by Easterday’s son, Cole.

The land is being farmed to grow potatoes, sweet corn, carrots, peas, alfalfa and other crops. The state continues to monitor farming activity through what is known as a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit, which is intended to curb water pollution.

Easterday Dairy is located within the Lower Umatilla Groundwater Management Area, where regulators have detected high levels of nitrate in groundwater.

Earlier this year, ODA alleged the dairy violated its NPDES permit through a litany of offenses that took place between July 4 and Sept. 20, 2022 — including fertilizer spills and over-irrigating fields that led to water pooling and running off of cropland.

The dairy claims it did not cause these violations, and that they were committed on adjacent land owned and operated by Canyon Farm II, a subsidiary of California-based Fall Line Capital, for which it is not responsible.

The dairy filed a petition for reconsideration to ODA on June 8.

According to Easterday Dairy, its permit applies to two separate but adjoining properties: a 736-acre “dairy parcel” and 6,542-acre “farm parcel.” Canyon Farm II owns the larger farm parcel, and Easterday the smaller dairy parcel.

The dairy said in a statement it has not managed, controlled or operated the farm parcel since Dec. 15, 2021 and that Canyon Farm II denied it access to the land for compliance purposes on June 16, 2022.

In order to comply with ODA’s plan for correction, dairy managers say they would be “forced to break the law and trespass on the property in question.”

“Easterday Dairy is in full compliance with the actions required on property it owns and operates,” the statement reads.

Fall Line Capital could not immediately be reached for comment.