The longstanding Meat and Poultry (MPP) Effluent Guidelines and Standards will stand, announced Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin on Aug. 30. He says the proposed changes to the regulation are unnecessary.
EPA determined existing federal wastewater regulations under the Clean Water Act are effective and the burdens proposed changes would inflict on meat and poultry processors are unwarranted.
“The National Pork Producers Council (NPPC) applauds the Trump administration and EPA Administrator Zeldin for taking a common sense approach on the Meat & Poultry Processing Rule,” says Duane Stateler, NPPC president and pork producer from McComb, Ohio. “As proposed by the previous administration, this rule—which provides no environmental benefits—would have been devastating to small- and medium-sized meat processors across the country and the livestock farmers who rely on them as markets for their animals.”
EPA’s action will save not only the nearly 100 local meat processors that EPA itself identified would have to close down but also the thousands of family farmers who rely on them to stay in livestock production, Stateler points out.
“It will help ensure affordable, nutritious American-grown pork can continue to be served on dinner tables across the country,” Stateler says.
Moving Forward
The decision closes the book on a nearly two-year comment and consideration process in which NPPC and other stakeholders have worked with EPA to better inform the agency’s decision and preempt unnecessary harm.
“Under the prior proposal, if it were finalized, major pork processors would have faced significant costs to install new waste water management systems,” explains Michael Formica, NPPC chief legal strategist. “During that period of construction, some plants would likely have needed to temporarily shut down. Others might have had to cut back on how many shifts they run.”
EPA’s internal analysis showed that dozens of facilities, likely small and medium-sized, would be forced to shut down because they would be unable to afford the cost of the technology required to comply, Formica says. Overall, the industry would have realized additional costs estimated at greater than $1 billion a year.
“Producers who rely on those processors would have then been without a market for their livestock,” Formica adds.
Unnecessary Expansions
The Meat and Poultry Products Effluent Guidelines and Standards was enacted in 1974 by the EPA and amended in 2004 to cover wastewater directly discharged by processing facilities. NPPC says the proposed amendment would have established more stringent technological requirements for controlling discharges from processors and significantly increased the scope of plants that were covered by the rules.
While the agricultural industry and the meat and poultry processing sectors support clean water efforts, EPA found these expansions were unnecessary.
NPPC says it appreciates EPA taking no action on the proposal, which would have disrupted packing capacity and livestock markets, in turn inflicting additional financial harm on producers and leading to further industry concentration and the loss of independent farmers.
The Meat Institute says the proposed rule would have also harmed the relationship between meat and poultry processing (MPP) facilities and publicly-owned treatment works (POTWs).
“Indirect discharging MPP facilities often make significant financial investments in maintaining and upgrading the POTW or shouldering major surcharges for the POTW’s continued operation and maintenance, which reduce public treatment costs for residential ratepayers and improve the quality of local and downstream waters,” the Meat Institute wrote in a statement.
