Washington, D.C. (press release) – On April 11, a coalition of environmental groups, including Louisiana-based Healthy Gulf, filed 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. oil refineries, chemical plants, and factories that manufacture fertilizer, plastics, pesticides and nonferrous metals.
“Louisiana’s waterways have been burdened by water pollution from refineries and chemical plants, and so there are no excuses for EPA to continue missing opportunities to improve standards for these industries,” said Andrew Whitehurst, water program director for Healthy Gulf, one of the 13 groups filing the lawsuit. “Technology-based guidelines for pollution control systems must evolve with improvements in water cleanup technology.”
The Clean Water Act requires the EPA to limit discharges of industrial pollutants based on the best available wastewater treatment methods, and to tighten those limits at least once every five years where data show treatment technologies have improved. But EPA has never set limits for many pollutants and has failed to update the few decades-old limits that exist – including limits set almost 40 years ago for oil refineries (1985), plastics manufacturers (1984) and fertilizer plants (1986).
Outdated pollution control technology standards meant that, for example, 81 oil refineries across the U.S. dumped 15.7 million pounds of nitrogen and 1.6 billion pounds of chlorides, sulfates and other dissolved solids (which can be harmful to aquatic life) into waterways in 2021. Twenty-one nitrogen fertilizer plants discharged 7.7 million pounds of total nitrogen, which causes algae blooms and fish-killing “dead-zones” and proposed new plants will add millions of additional pounds to that load. The EPA estimates that 229 inorganic chemical plants dumped over 2 billion pounds of pollution into waterways in 2019.
In a report released in January, the Environmental Integrity Project examined the records of 81 refineries across the U.S. that discharge to waterways and found that seven in Louisiana ranked as among the worst in the nation for water pollution. The ExxonMobil Baton Rouge Refinery, for example, released 55 million pounds of total dissolved solids into the Mississippi River in 2021, along with 182,238 pounds of nitrogen pollution (which feeds algal blooms and low-oxygen dead zones.)
Overall, 14 refineries in Louisiana released a total of 215 million pounds of total dissolved solids into Louisiana waterways in 2021, 2.4 million pounds of nitrogen, 9,990 pounds of selenium, 1,473 pounds of nickel, and several other pollutants.
“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, deputy director of the Environmental Integrity Project, which coordinated the action by the 13 environmental groups. “We expect EPA to do its job and protect America’s waterways and public health as required by the Clean Water Act.”
For a copy of the lawsuit, click here.
