Legal Victory Requires EPA to Reconsider Outdated Industrial Water Pollution Standards
Tennessee Riverkeeper and a coalition of environmental groups won a victory in a federal lawsuit against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for failing to set limits on harmful chemicals like cyanide, benzene, mercury, and chlorides in the billions of gallons of wastewater pouring out of U.S. industries. The industries include factories that manufacture plastics, fertilizer, pesticides and nonferrous metals, as well as petroleum refineries, inorganic and organic chemical manufacturers.
Four factories in Tennessee are cited in the lawsuit including: Arconic Tennessee LLC, Rohm and Haas Chemical Plant, Silgan Plastic Closure Systems facility, Tennessee Operations of Eastman Chemical Company facility. Two factories on the Tennessee River in Decatur, Alabama are cited in the lawsuit including: Ascend Performance Materials Operations and Indorama Ventures Xylenes and PTA.
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency acted unlawfully in declining to update water pollution control standards for seven major industries. The court agreed with conservation groups that the Clean Water Act requires the EPA to consider technological advancements in controlling water pollution when the agency updates its pollution reduction standards, known as effluent limitation guidelines.
"Pollution from plastics, pesticides, petroleum and a grim litany of other toxins continue to plague public water supplies. The Clean Water Act requires factories to use the best available methods to treat their pollution, but the government has failed to enforce this provision. This legal victory will reduce a vast array of toxins in our environment from numerous industries by requiring polluters to finally use modern technology and obey the law,” said David Whiteside, of Tennessee Riverkeeper.
The lawsuit was filed by Tennessee Riverkeeper along with the Environmental Integrity Project, the Center for Biological Diversity, Black Warrior Riverkeeper, Bayou City Waterkeeper, San Antonio Bay Estuarine Waterkeeper, San Francisco Baykeeper, Clean Water Action, Food & Water Watch, Environment America, Healthy Gulf, and the Surfrider Foundation. The conservation groups were represented by in-house counsel with the Environmental Integrity Project and Center for Biological Diversity.
“EPA has ignored the Clean Water Act for decades and allowed the petrochemical industry to dump its dirty wastewater into our public waterways without modern pollution controls,” said Jen Duggan, executive director at the Environmental Integrity Project. “But this decision makes clear that EPA must act to limit the toxic stew of pollutants released by refineries and the plants that make chemicals and plastics, and protect downstream communities and the health of our rivers, streams and lakes.”
The EPA has not updated 80% of the 59 categories of water-pollution technology standards in more than 30 years. These outdated standards mean more water pollution is being released into U.S. waters than allowed under the law despite the availability of modern pollution control technology.
“This is a significant victory for clean water, public health and aquatic wildlife, but it is also a beacon of hope amid the Trump administration’s efforts to dismantle our key environmental protections,” said Hannah Connor, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. “The EPA must now take action to ratchet down dangerous mercury, chloride and plastics pollution instead of giving a free pass to polluters. It’s ludicrous that so many polluters are using pollution control technologies from the Reagan era before personal computers and email existed.”
The court additionally determined that the EPA acted arbitrarily when it failed to consider the role that stormwater runoff plays in pollution from the plastics industry. The ruling also found that the existing standards for reducing plastic pollution are significantly less strict than the scientific information demonstrated they could be. As the plastics industry has continued to ramp up plastic pollution in this country, an estimated 8 million tons of plastic enters our oceans every year, and it’s expected to outweigh all the fish in the sea by 2050.
The EPA’s failure to update these limits has real-world consequences for downstream communities and the environment. A recent analysis by the Environmental Integrity Project found that plastics manufacturers, for example, release pollutants that are completely unregulated by the EPA, including contaminants that scientists have identified as carcinogenic or otherwise harmful to human health.
These pollutants include dioxins, which are known cancer-causing agents that are highly toxic and persist in the environment, and 1,4-dioxane, a likely carcinogen that EPA scientists recently indicated is threatening drinking water sources. Nitrogen and phosphorus pollution discharged from plastics and petrochemical plants — which cause algal blooms and fish-killing low-oxygen zones — are also not currently controlled by the EPA’s water pollution control standards.
“This legal victory will help improve public health for so many people by cleaning up our water and environment. Americans are unwillingly exposed to too many chemicals and toxins from plastics. Tennessee Riverkeeper seeks to improve public health by reducing pollution and cleaning up public water supplies which provide drinking water. Legal victories like these achieve positive impacts that are far reaching and will hopefully help clean up the water supply for millions of Americans over the years,” added David Whiteside, of Tennessee Riverkeeper.