The Trump administration has taken another hard jab at protections for the nation’s rivers and lakes—and a broad coalition of advocates is swinging right back.
Last week, Environmental Integrity Project (EIP) and other groups took Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to federal court over water pollution rules they deem “weak and outdated.” At issue are facilities that process beef, pork, or poultry before releasing wastewater into freshwater sources. Although the effluent can contain oxygen-sucking chemicals and dangerous pathogens, the EPA has resisted updating pollution standards for the facilities for 15 years. Despite calls from advocates, the agency said in October it would not change the standards this year. Now the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit is being asked to intervene.
The court action has roots in an EIP report released late last year that showed U.S. slaughterhouses were pushing nitrogen, phosphorus, bacteria, and other contaminants into waterways well in excess of their federal permits. In the Texas, poultry juggernauts Pilgrim’s Pride and Tyson were discharging high volumes of blood, urine, feces and feathers into East Texas rivers and lakes, creating low-oxygen environments conducive to algal blooms and fish kills. EIP urged the EPA in October 2018 to lower the amount of pollutants that plants are allowed to discharge from 103 milligrams of nitrogen per liter to 35 milligrams per liter, which many slaughterhouses already do voluntarily.
