Advocates Take Legal Action Over Trump Administration’s Backtracking on Slaughterhouse Water Pollution

Washington, D.C. —

A coalition of 10 organizations filed a federal lawsuit yesterday challenging the Trump Administration’s recent decision to abandon EPA regulations that would have stopped millions of pounds of pollutants from being dumped by slaughterhouses and meat processing plants into waterways across the U.S.

The groups filed their petition with the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit after the Trump EPA on August 28 announced that it would throw out rules planned by the Biden Administration that would have, for the first time, imposed limits on phosphorus pollution from 126 meat industry plants across the U.S., eliminating at least eight million pounds of this pollutant per year, plus nine million pounds of nitrogen and other pollutants, including fecal bacteria and grease.

“In a shameful betrayal of communities across the U.S., the Trump Administration is walking away from long-overdue, common sense rules to control the slaughterhouse industry’s dumping of a grotesque amount of waste into American waterways,” said Jen Duggan, Executive Director of the Environmental Integrity Project. “The failure to require modern pollution controls is against the law and jeopardizes public health.”

Alexis Andiman, senior attorney at Earthjustice, said: “The slaughterhouse industry racks up hundreds of billions of dollars in sales each year, and it generates pollution that harms millions of Americans.  EPA knows it’s possible to reduce slaughterhouse pollution without raising prices but instead, it’s chosen to prioritize corporate profits over clean water and public health.”

Slaughterhouses and meat processing plants in the U.S. every year discharge about 112 million pounds of nitrogen and phosphorus pollution, which feeds algal blooms that contribute to fish-killing low-oxygen zones. Over 60 million people, including disproportionate numbers of people with low incomes and people of color, live within one mile of rivers and streams degraded by slaughterhouse industry pollution.

Hannah Connor, Environmental Health Deputy Director at the Center for Biological Diversity, said:  “The U.S. meat industry slaughters some 18,000 animals a minute, creating a waste stream full of blood, fecal bacteria and disease-causing pathogens that adds up to one of our country’s largest industrial sources of nutrient pollution. Now Trump’s EPA is killing a rule designed to curb discharges of that nasty wastewater into our rivers and streams and safeguard people and wildlife.”

Kelly Hunter Foster, Senior Attorney at Waterkeeper Alliance, said: “EPA is legally obligated to enforce the Clean Water Act but is instead claiming unchecked discretion to ignore its mandates in favor of deregulatory priorities.  Allowing slaughterhouses and rendering plants to continue discharging millions of pounds of pollutants each year contradicts the agency’s own findings that the revised standards are needed and would improve water quality, protect public health and benefit local economies.”

John Rumpler, Clean Water Director for Environment America, said:  “We reject the idea that America must accept dead fish, toxic algae and polluted waters when existing technology can dramatically reduce pollution from meat and poultry plants. It’s time for new slaughterhouse rules — strong enough to protect America’s rivers, lakes and streams.”

Rebecca Cary, Managing Attorney for Humane World for Animals, formerly called Humane Society of the United States, said: “In deciding to forego limits on pollution from inhumane slaughterhouses, EPA has refused to protect both people and animals from discharges of blood, fat, nitrogen and other pollutants. The agency charged with enforcing environmental standards is now choosing to allow dangerous water pollution to be dumped into America’s rivers and streams.”

Morgan Boutilier, staff attorney at the Animal Legal Defense Fund, said: “As the EPA’s own analysis confirms, updating slaughterhouse pollution standards is critical to protecting the environment and public health. By withdrawing its proposed rule, the EPA is flouting the Clean Water Act to let animal agribusiness continue to externalize costs onto the vulnerable communities and ecosystems that can least afford it.”

Food & Water Watch Staff Attorney Dani Replogle said: “In yet another blatant capitulation to Big Ag, the Trump Administration has decided to allow multinational meat corporations to continue fouling our waterways with blood, phosphorus, and other slaughterhouse waste rather than require them to clean up their messes. Fortunately, the law does not allow corporate cronyism to stand in the way of clean water — we’ll continue to see EPA in court until the agency does its job.”

BACKGROUND:

The petition to force EPA to address the problem of slaughterhouse water pollution was filed yesterday by the Environmental Integrity Project and Earthjustice on behalf of Cape Fear River Watch, Rural Empowerment Association for Community Help, Waterkeeper Alliance, Humane World Alliance, Food & Water Watch, Environment America, Center for Biological Diversity, and Animal Legal Defense Fund.

A similar coalition of groups sued the EPA in 2019 demanding that the agency follow the requirements of the Clean Water Act and modernize badly outdated technology standards for water pollution control systems for slaughterhouses and meat processing plants, which for some facilities had not been updated in two decades and for others never established.

Following that lawsuit, EPA announced in September 2021 that it would update standards for the industry, but it did not commit to a rulemaking timeline. Earthjustice and EIP filed a second lawsuit in 2022, which resulted in a consent decree requiring EPA to take final action on the standards by August 31, 2025.

On January 23, 2024, the Biden Administration EPA proposed to revise the existing technology-based effluent limitations guidelines and standards for the meat processing industry.  The EPA outlined three different proposals, with its preferred option being the easiest for industry to implement. It would impose new phosphorus and nitrogen pollution limits on 126 plants that dump their waste directly into waterways, but not limit this pollution from more than 3,000 others that pipe their waste to municipal wastewater treatment plants.

But just before the deadline of August 31, 2025, the Trump Administration EPA announced that it had decided not to implement any of the three options for updating pollution control standards from the industry.

Although EPA attributed its decision to abandon the rules to the fact that the meat processing industry faces “multiple economic stressors,” the agency’s own records shows that – even under the most stringent of the three standards — fewer than 1 percent of all the meat processing facilities would face economic stress by upgrading their pollution control systems.

For a copy of the lawsuit, click here.