A coalition of environmental groups sued the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on April 11 for failing to set limits on chemicals like cyanide, benzene, mercury, and chlorides in wastewater emitted by oil refineries and plants that produce chemicals, fertilizer, plastics, pesticides, and nonferrous metals.
The lawsuit alleges that EPA has violated the Clean Water Act (CWA) by failing to set limits on the amount of pollution that these industries can discharge into waterways. The lawsuit also claims that EPA has failed to update effluent limitation guidelines (ELGs) that were set in the mid-1980s for oil refineries, plastics manufacturers, and fertilizer plants.
According to a statement from the Environmental Integrity Project (EIP), which is coordinating the legal action on behalf of 13 environmental groups, a total of 59 fertilizer manufacturing plants discharged nearly 90 million pounds of pollution into waterways in 2019, including 21 nitrogen plants that discharged 7.7 million pounds of total nitrogen.
“The EPA has set no limits on several fertilizer plant pollutants, including selenium, total chromium, zinc, iron, nickel, cadmium, cyanide, and lead,” the statement claims. “The current effluent guidelines for fertilizer factories have not been updated since 1986.”
The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in San Francisco by the EIP, the Center for Biological Diversity, Clean Water Action, Waterkeeper Alliance, Food & Water Watch, Environment America, Bayou City Waterkeeper, Black Warrior Riverkeeper, Healthy Gulf, San Antonio Bay Estuarine Waterkeeper, San Francisco Baykeeper, the Surfrider Foundation, and Tennessee Riverkeeper.
“No one should get a free pass to pollute. It’s completely unacceptable that EPA has, for decades, ignored the law and failed to require modern wastewater pollution controls for oil refineries and petrochemical and plastics plants,” said Jen Duggan, EIP Deputy Director. “We expect EPA to do its job and protect America’s waterways and public health as required by the Clean Water Act.”