WASHINGTON — The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) introduced a proposed rule on Dec. 15 to revise wastewater discharge standards for meat and poultry processing plants.

The agency said it would leverage pollution control technologies to cut the amount of nitrogen, phosphorus and other pollutants in wastewater. 

EPA said other materials from facilities it will monitor include oil, grease, organic material, salts and ammonia.

In its first preferred option, the EPA explained that it would establish more stringent effluent limitations for nitrogen and, for the first time, on phosphorus. 

The agency said the new rule would apply to about 850 of the 5,000 meat facilities in the nation.

With two other options, the EPA would apply effluent limitation on additional direct and indirect dischargers. They would also establish pretreatment standards for nitrogen and phosphorus for some indirect discharging facilities included in the preferred option.

“In addition to the three options, EPA is requesting comment on a provision that would require segregation and management of high-salt waste streams that are produced at some facilities, as well as the addition of E. coli bacteria as a regulated parameter for direct dischargers,” the agency said in its summary.

Based on early estimates, the EPA said the proposed rule would reduce wastewater pollutants at facilities by about 100 million lbs per year.

On Jan. 24, 2024, an online-only hearing will be held on the proposal to hear testimony, or participants can register to “listen-only” to the hearing.

Then, on Jan. 31, an in-person hearing will take place at the EPA headquarters, with a time and location announced in the near future.

The agency stated that it would accept public comments on the proposed regulation for 60 days once it’s on the Federal Register.

Following the publication of the proposed rule, the American Association of Meat Processors released its early thoughts on what it would mean for its members.

“In reviewing the new proposed EPA rule on Effluent Limitation Guidelines, AAMP is encouraged by the work EPA has done in the development of the proposed rule to protect the small business entities that make up the majority of our members,” said Chris Young, executive director of AAMP. We had voiced concerns early on to EPA about the potential costs and devastating consequences of compliance for the small and very small processors. We are happy to see EPA responded to our concerns and minimized the impact of the rule on those businesses.

However, Young still raised some fears about the EPA’s method for coming up with these possible regulations.

“AAMP is still concerned about the overall impact of the rule on the industry as a whole, and we would have liked to have seen EPA spend more time gathering data from a larger sampling of plants to get a better picture of the industry as a whole, rather than testing wastewater from a handful of plants,” Young said.

“I think it would have been beneficial for both industry and EPA if there had been more of a collaboration between the two to come up with some real common-sense answers to these wastewater concerns," he added. "AAMP, and I believe the meat and poultry processing Industry as a whole, want to be environmentally responsible and protect the waterways around us, but I think that we are all better served by working together to find treatment solutions that are economically sustainable and do not force even one business to close.”