Washington, D.C. — Two thirds of EPA’s water pollution standards for industries are more than 30 years old, despite a Clean Water Act requirement that they be reviewed every year to keep pace with improving pollution control technology, according to a review of federal regulations.
For example, EPA’s standards for cement manufacturing plants have not been updated since 1977, even though commercially-available pollution-control systems have advanced dramatically since then. Standards for oil refineries have not been updated since 1985; and for rubber manufacturing, not since they were issued in 1974.
Because grossly outdated technology standards mean more pollution is pouring into waterways than the law should allow, the Environmental Integrity Project and 60 allied organizations, including Waterkeeper Alliance and Earthjustice, sent a letter to EPA Administrator Michael Regan today demanding that the agency repair its annual review process to update its water pollution standards on the eve of the 50th anniversary of the 1972 Clean Water Act.
“It’s outrageous that we have EPA technology standards for major industries that date back to the 1970s – when modern technology meant rotary dial telephones, Atari’s Pong, and Apple II’s with floppy disks,” said Sylvia Lam, Attorney for the Environmental Integrity Project.
“As the Clean Water Act’s 50th anniversary approaches, we are calling on the EPA Administrator to fix a system for reviewing and updating industry guidelines that is obviously broken and resulting in much more water pollution than should be allowed,” said Lam.
The letter acknowledges that the Biden Administration EPA, on Sept. 14, announced that it plans to update the standards for slaughterhouses and two other industry categories. But the letter notes that – more broadly – EPA has failed to update the standards for many other industries, and is not carrying out its annual review duties as required by Congress.
Kelly Hunter Foster, Senior Attorney for Waterkeeper Alliance, said: “The Clean Water Act requires elimination of all pollution discharges into the nation’s waters and directs EPA to require increasingly improving technology to achieve that objective. This is the heart of the law’s plan to restore and protect clean water and EPA simply has not done it.”
Earthjustice attorney Alexis Andiman said: “Technology has changed a lot since the 1970s, and it’s past time for EPA to catch up. EPA’s failure to update water pollution standards is illegal—and it allows the worst polluters to continue cutting corners at the expense of public health and the environment.”
Despite some progress, 60 percent of the rivers and stream miles that have been assessed across the U.S. fail to meet water quality standards because they are impaired by pollutants, according to EPA reports and data. That means that, with the Clean Water Act’s birthday approaching in 2022, fewer than half of the country’s assessed waterways are reliably safe and clean.
The 1972 Clean Water Act requires that EPA establish national pollution limits for specific industries based on the best available treatment methods, and then review these limits annually to keep pace with advances in technologies to reduce—and ultimately eliminate—water pollution from industrial sources.
In the 1970s and 1980s, EPA began to meet that obligation, issuing national water pollution limits for 50 out of the 59 industries currently subject to such limits. But since then, EPA has failed to lower these limits as new, more effective treatment technologies and methods become available.
EPA last updated limits for 39 of the 59 industries across the U.S. more than 30 years ago, and 17 of those date back to the 1970s. In fact, the average age of these national water pollution limits is 31 years old. That was about when the World Wide Web was first launched, and when Apple was still 17 years away from its first public release of the iPhone.
“Technology—including pollution control technology—has advanced dramatically over those three decades, and EPA—by law—should be requiring industry to keep up with that modernization,” Lam said. “But that’s not happening—and that failure by EPA puts our waterways and public health at risk.”
One example is water pollution from slaughterhouses, which are a source of millions of pounds of nitrogen and phosphorus pollution annually that clog waterways with algae blooms that threaten public health and rob the waters of the oxygen needed to support aquatic life.
EPA data show that the cleanest slaughterhouses across the U.S.—those that have adopted more recent commercially-available pollution control technology – have cut their nitrogen discharges more than two thirds below the industry-wide average.
That shows that the rest of the meat and poultry processing industry could improve, too. But EPA is not requiring this cleanup, because it has not updated the standards—technically called “effluent limitation guidelines”—for these plants since at least 2004, according to federal records.
Below is a chart showing the age of the effluent limitation guidelines for a few of EPA’s 59 industry categories across the U.S. The full chart showing the age of all 59 effluent limitation guidelines can be found in the letter to EPA.
EPA Water Pollution Limits for Select Industries (Effluent Limitation Guidelines)
Limits for Industrial Category |
Year of Promulgation |
Year of Last Revision |
Age of Pollution Limit (years) |
Rubber Manufacturing |
1974 |
never revised |
47 |
Asbestos Manufacturing |
1974 |
1975 |
46 |
Seafood Processing |
1974 |
1975 |
46 |
Dairy Processing |
1974 |
1975 |
46 |
Soap Manufacturing |
1974 |
1975 |
46 |
Tar and Asphalt Manufacturing |
1975 |
never revised |
46 |
Explosives Manufacturing |
1976 |
never revised |
45 |
Cement Manufacturing |
1974 |
1977 |
44 |
Mineral Mining and Processing |
1975 |
1979 |
42 |
Timber Products Processing |
1974 |
1981 |
40 |
Textile Mills |
1974 |
1982 |
39 |
Inorganic Chemicals |
1982 |
never revised |
39 |
Petroleum Refining |
1974 |
1985 |
36 |
Metal Foundries |
1985 |
never revised |
36 |
Leather Tanning and Finishing |
1982 |
1996 |
25 |
Pesticide Chemicals |
1978 |
1998 |
23 |
Landfills |
2000 |
never revised |
21 |
Coal Mining |
1975 |
2002 |
19 |
Meat and Poultry Products |
1974 |
2004 |
17 |
Pulp and Paper |
1974 |
2007 |
14 |
Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations |
1974 |
2008 |
13 |
Oil and Gas Extraction |
1975 |
2016 |
5 |
Coal Plants |
1974 |
2020 (pending) |
1 |
For a copy of the letter sent to EPA, click here.
The list of organization signing the letter to EPA is:
Environmental Integrity Project
Earthjustice
Waterkeeper Alliance
Center for Biological Diversity
Clean Water Action
Natural Resources Defense Council
Food & Water Watch
Sierra Club
Environment America
Animal Legal Defense Fund
Waterkeepers Chesapeake
PennFuture
Virginia Conservation Network
Chesapeake Bay Foundation
Chesapeake Climate Action Network
Chesapeake Legal Alliance
Cape Fear River Watch
Southwings
ShoreRivers
Friends of the Chemung River Watershed
Patuxent Riverkeeper
Potomac Riverkeeper Network
Coosa Riverkeeper
Hurricane Creekkeeper
Lower Susquehanna Riverkeeper Association
Anacostia Riverkeeper
Alamosa Riverkeeper
Apalachicola Riverkeeper
Assateague Coastkeeper
Atchafalaya Basinkeeper
Bayou City Waterkeeper
Black Warrior Riverkeeper
Cahaba Riverkeeper
Calusa Waterkeeper
Chattahoochee Riverkeeper
Chesapeake Climate Action Network
Choctawhatchee Riverkeeper
Congaree Riverkeeper
Lake Coeur d’Alene Waterkeeper
Los Angeles Waterkeeper
Matanzas Riverkeeper
Mobile Baykeeper
NY/NJ Baykeeper
Ogeechee Riverkeeper
Raritan Riverkeeper
San Antonio Bay Estuarine Waterkeeper
San Francisco Baykeeper
San Luis Obispo Coastkeeper
Seneca Lake Guardian
Snake River Waterkeeper
South Platte River Waterkeeper
Suncoast Waterkeeper
Tennessee Riverkeeper
Three Rivers Waterkeeper
Upper Allegheny River Project
Waccamaw Riverkeeper
West Virginia Rivers Coalition
Yellow Dog Riverkeeper
Youghiogheny Riverkeeper
South Yuba River Citizens League
Kissimmee Waterkeeper
Hudson Riverkeeper
Media contact: Tom Pelton, Environmental Integrity Project (443) 510-2574 or tpelton@environm915stg.wpenginepowered.com
The Environmental Integrity Project is a 19-year-old nonprofit organization, based in Washington D.C. and Austin, Texas, that is dedicated to enforcing environmental laws and strengthening policy to protect public health and the environment.
