The federal government has made every effort to avoid setting clean air standards for the nation’s 218 sewage sludge incinerators (SSIs), which burn a witch’s brew of dirty wastes: pesticides, medical waste, industrial by-products and discarded materials from auto shops, for example.

The Bush administration tried to exempt SSIs from the Clean Air Act entirely. Earthjustice sued and won, which forced the government to issue standards. But in 2010, the Obama EPA released woefully weak emission limits that would have done little if implemented to actually protect communities from emissions of mercury, lead, cancer-causing dioxins and other pollutants from SSIs.

Earthjustice went to court again and in 2013, a federal judge sided with Earthjustice and sent EPA’s weak standards back to the agency with the admonition to make them more protective.