We study a strongly anisotropic self-organized critical system coupled to an isotropic random fluid environment. The former is described by a continuous (coarse-grained) model due to Hwa and Kardar. The latter is modelled by the Navier—Stokes equation with a random stirring force of a rather general form that includes, in particular, the overall shaking of the system and a non-local part with power-law spectrum ∼k4−d−y that describes, in the limiting case y→4, a turbulent fluid. The full problem of the two coupled stochastic equations is represented as a field theoretic model which is shown to be multiplicatively renormalizable and logarithmic at d=4. Due to the interplay between isotropic and anisotropic interactions, the corresponding renormalization group (RG) equations reveal a rich pattern of possible infrared (large scales, long times) regimes of asymptotic behaviour of various Green's functions. The attractors of the RG equations in the five-dimensional space of coupling parameters include a two-dimensional surface of Gaussian (free) fixed points, a single fixed point that corresponds to the plain advection by the turbulent fluid (the Hwa–Kardar self-interaction is irrelevant) and a one-dimensional curve of fixed points that corresponds to the case where the Hwa–Kardar nonlinearity and the uniform stirring are simultaneously relevant. The character of attractiveness is determined by the exponent y and the dimension of space d; the most interesting case d=3 and y→4 is described by the single fixed point. The corresponding critical dimensions of the frequency and the basic fields are found exactly.