Kraft Heinz Foods Co., the maker of Kraft Mac & Cheese, Lunchables and Jell-O, has agreed to pay an $8,000 fine after Iowa officials discovered its Muscatine plant failed to report the pollution it sent into a Mississippi River tributary over three years.

The Iowa Department of Natural Resources says the publicly traded company, with headquarters in Pittsburgh and Chicago, failed to report to the state its monthly treated discharge into Mad Creek, a Mississippi River tributary, from January 2021 through December 2023, violating its National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit.

Kraft Heinz, which admitted no wrongdoing under the state’s administrative consent order, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment Friday. The Muscatine plant makes condiments like ketchup, mustard and barbecue sauce.

The state environmental protection agency discovered the reporting gap during a compliance review, which facilities like Kraft Heinz undergo every three to five years, said Terry Jones, an Iowa DNR senior environmental specialist, Friday.

The reporting violation wasn’t flagged in the state’s database because the plant indicated it had shut down, Jones said, adding that the state knew that wasn’t accurate and investigated, discovering the lack of reporting.

Kraft Heinz agreed to pay the administrative fine, according to the Iowa DNR consent order. The state assessed $3,000 against the company for economically benefitting from the violation; $3,000, given the gravity of the violation; and $2,000 for failing to meet the permit requirements.

In November 2020, the state notified Kraft Heinz that discharge monitoring reports showed it had exceeded numerous discharge limits from mid-May 2018 through September 2020 — and that it failed to test effluent as regularly as required under its federal effluent discharge permit. The state required corrective action.

Jones said Kraft Heinz believed the three-year lapse in reporting occurred because of a change in personnel. The company reported it earned $2.85 billion in its last fiscal year.

State administrative fines are capped at $10,000. Iowa DNR could have pursued larger fines — up to $5,000 per day of violation — by referring it to the Iowa attorney general’s office.

Iowa women’s basketball fans were officially introduced to Villanova transfer Lucy Olsen on Friday night in a unique setting.

Playing as part of USA’s 3×3 Nations League team, Olsen and her teammates went head-to-head with Team USA’s primary 3×3 squad heading to the Olympics next month. The exhibition was a part of the WNBA Skills Competition on All-Star Weekend in Phoenix.

Team USA pulled out a 19-16 win over the Nations League squad in a thrillingly chaotic basketball battle, which sees a winner determined after 10 minutes or if either team reaches 21 points. Two-pointers are worth one point and treys are worth two points. Olsen hit a 3-pointer in the contest.

With Caitlin Clark watching courtside along with every other WNBA star, Olsen and fellow collegiate players Christina Dalce (Maryland), Morgan Maly (Creighton), Cotie McMahon (Ohio State), Mikaylah Williams (LSU) Serah Williams (Wisconsin) battled Team USA’s Hailey Van Lith (TCU), Rhyne Howard (Atlanta Dream), Derica Hamby (Los Angeles Sparks) and Cierra Burdick.

Olsen and the Nations League team will next compete in the FIBA 3×3 Nations League America Conference July 22-28 in Mexico City.

Olsen was the nation’s third-leading scorer last year at Villanova and is tasked with replacing some of the lost production resulting from Clark’s graduation at Iowa.

Underground drainage tiling apparently failed and formed a sinkhole in a corn field in northwest Iowa that allowed manure to flow into a creek, where it killed small fish for miles, according to the Iowa Department of Natural Resources.

The manure came from Roorda Dairy west of Paullina, which has about 4,200 dairy cattle, DNR records show. The dairy was irrigating a field with manure and didn’t notice the damaged tile line because of standing corn, said Tom Roos, a senior environmental specialist for the department.

“With all these rain events, a tile line must have burst,” he said.

Paullina is in O’Brien County in far northwest Iowa, parts of which have suffered from severe flooding in recent weeks. The pressure from influxes of water into tile drains can cause weak areas to rupture, after which soil can flow into the tiling and create a sinkhole.

On Wednesday, someone noticed dead fish in nearby Mud Creek and reported it to state law enforcement. A DNR investigation found that the manure had been flowing into the creek through the drainage tiling and killed fish along about 9 miles of the stream, until it met another creek.

It’s unclear how many gallons of manure might have spilled into the creek and how many fish it killed, Roos said. An investigation is ongoing.

The dairy promptly plugged a culvert to prevent more manure from reaching the creek, Roos said. He did not know how long the spill had occurred.

Roorda Dairy paid a $5,000 fine to the DNR in 2022 for starting construction on a manure digester without state approval. Digesters use bacteria to consume the manure and emit flammable gases such as methane that can be used to heat or power farm operations.