The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently held two public hearings on the proposed effluent limitations guidelines (ELGs) and standards that could apply to up to 5,000 meat and poultry plants nationwide under the Clean Water Act.

In its rulemaking, the agency will look at options for more stringent effluent limitations on total nitrogen, new effluent limitations on total phosphorus, updated limitations for other pollutants, new pretreatment standards for indirect dischargers and revised production thresholds for some subcategories in the existing rule.

The new rules would also request comment on potential effluent limitations on chlorides for high chloride waste streams, establishing effluent limitations for E. coli for direct dischargers and including conditional limits for indirect dischargers that release to Publicly Owned Treatment Works (POTWs).

The EPA published the details of its proposal on Jan. 23 in the Federal Register. The agency then held a virtual hearing on the matter the next day with comments needed on or before March 25.

After its announcement in the Federal Register, the EPA explained that it preferred improving effluent limitations created in 1974 and updated in 2004 to control nitrogen.

The agency proposed three regulatory options for the ELG. Option 1, the preferred option by the EPA, would include new phosphorus limits and revised nitrogen limits for large direct dischargers and new pretreatment standards on certain conventional pollutants for large indirect dischargers. Option 2 would consist of the requirements in Option 1 and add nutrient limits for indirect discharging of first processors and renderers above specified production thresholds. Option 3 would be similar to Option 2 but with lower production thresholds for the nutrient limits and conventional pollutant limits for both direct and indirect dischargers.

Along with the testimony at the virtual hearing from the meat industry, several statements from water rights advocates stated that the EPA did not go far enough and should adopt Option 3 instead of its preferred Option 1.

Meat Industry Responds

Dozens of interested associations and trade groups provided comments to the EPA during its virtual hearing about the wastewater discharge standards for meat and poultry facilities.

Jayne Davis, director of corporate and regulatory affairs at Washington Beef, provided testimony on behalf of the company. The meatpacker employs more than 1,000 people at its Toppenish, Wash., facility and processes about 1% of the nation’s cattle annually.

Davis noted that the EPA’s proposed measure ran directly counter to President Biden’s executive order to promote competition to support small and mid-sized packers that face current industry concentration.

“The ELGs (effluent guidelines) provide the perfect set of circumstances to further consolidate the beef industry by forcing the smaller players out of business if they are unable to comply or absorb the cost of these regulations,” Davis said during the public hearing. “We acknowledge that EPA is not in the business of economic protection, but economic impacts are one of the numerous factors that the agency is required to evaluate.”

Davis added that Washington Beef is the only packer of any scale in the Pacific Northwest region outside the national producers.

Michael Formica, chief legal strategist for the National Pork Producers Council, discussed how stakeholders were only given 24 hours after the proposal was published in the Federal Register before commenting at the virtual public hearing on Jan. 24.

“EPA’s rule risks significant disruptions in the nation’s livestock market, and farmers are only just beginning to learn about it,” Formica said during the hearing. “The economic estimates that the agency provided are insufficient and don’t adequately account for the harm that would be caused to farmers and the nation’s agricultural economy.”

Formica noted that having a virtual and an in-person hearing in Washington DC is insufficient, considering the impact the rules would have on the pork industry. He said what is missing is a forum to allow farmers to speak out.

“There needs to be public hearings out where farmers live,” he concluded. “The farmers and packers they rely on need to have an opportunity to make their voices heard.”

In further comments in the hearing, Bryan Burns, vice president and associate general counsel of the Meat Institute, detailed some of the impacts EPA rules could have throughout the meat supply chain.

The EPA’s Federal Register notice said its three regulatory options will impact between 844 and 1,618 facilities around the United States.

Under the facility closure analysis, the EPA estimated that 16 facilities would potentially close under its first preferred option. Under Option 2, EPA estimated 22 facilities would potentially close, and under Option 3, 53 facilities would potentially close.

“Those closures will come at a time when Congress and the administration have been working to expand, not contract, the availability of small and medium-sized processors,” Burns said. “The agency has stated that the proposed rules achieve both of those goals but has not stated how that’s possible.”

Burns noted that the 60-day comment period made by the EPA is “grossly inadequate” to employ experts to review the three regulatory options to conduct economic and feasibility analysis and provide input to the EPA.

“We ask that the agency extend its comment period by no fewer than 90 days so that industry can meaningfully participate in this hugely impactful rulemaking,” Burns said at the virtual public hearing on Jan. 24.

Paul Bredwell, executive vice president of regulatory programs for the US Poultry and Egg Association explained the difficulties of working through the proposed EPA rules by the end of March.

Bredwell noted that about 660 documents were made available along with the first publication of the Federal Register with a short comment period of 60 days.

“It’s unrealistic to think that the incredibly short comment period will provide stakeholders with ample time to perform the very important task of reviewing EPA’s cost estimation, which is the basis for claiming that the rule of the environmental benefits outweighs the financial impact,” Bredwell said.

Near the end of the virtual hearing, Troy Wilcox, executive director of the Northwest Meat Processors Association, brought up his concerns about the regulations going too far but still said the NWPA would be in favor of Option 1 presented by the EPA.

Chris Milam, a member of the board of directors of the Kentucky Meat Processors Association and owner of Hampton Premium Meats, explained that small meat processors could be put out of business with a rule like this, making it necessary for the EPA to look at various resolutions.

“There’s not a blanket solution,” Milam said. “EPA needs to do their homework and recognize that there are facilities that are doing a small number of animals. There are facilities that do a fair amount and there’s some that do larger numbers, but we’re not all created equal. We’re not all the same.”

Milam mentioned that the EPA regulations aren’t clear, and he would like more detail on who will monitor and enforce the rule.

Between the hearings in January, two congressmen decided to take a strong stance against the possible regulation.

Lawmakers step in 

Eric Burlison (R-Mo.) and Ron Estes (R-Kan.) introduced the Banning EPA’s Encroachment of Facilities (BEEF) Act that looks to prohibit the EPA from finalizing, implementing or enforcing the agency’s proposed rule officially titled “Clean Water Effluent Limitations Guidelines and Standards for the Meat and Poultry Products Point source category.”

“Once again, Biden’s EPA is using its rulemaking pen to attack small businesses in Kansas and across the country through their recent regulations proposal on local meat processors,” Estes said. “Kansans have shared with me that this egregious burden by federal bureaucrats would shutter small operations in our communities due to the steep costs of implementing unnecessary, major phosphate and nitrogen testing that large-scale meat-processing operations can absorb and already conduct.”

Supporters of the latest bill in the House of Representatives include the American Association of Meat Processors (AAMP), Missouri Farm Bureau, Missouri Association of Meat Processors and the Kansas Meat Processors Association.

“I want to be clear that AAMP believes we as an industry need to be environmentally responsible, but the proposed rule in its current state is greatly flawed,” said Chris Young, executive director for AAMP. “The proposed rule is based on limited wastewater collection and limited visits to meat and poultry facilities and is based largely on a study performed by one of the activist groups that sued EPA. EPA quotes the study more than 20 times in the proposed rule, a study that has not been peer reviewed. EPA needs to start over and do its due diligence in collecting data and work with the industry to understand its diversity and how we can work together to come up with cost effective sustainable answers to wastewater issues.”

Tom Eickman, owner of Eickman’s Processing Inc. in Seward, Ill., and president of AAMP, responded to the BEEF Act proposal and the recent proposed regulations by the EPA.

“A better understanding of the industry as a whole is needed to form a working set of rules that protects the environment and allows us to produce the food needed to feed the nation,” Eickman said. “Our owners and employees of all food processing facilities are also members of our communities. We all live, work and enjoy the environments in which we live, and we wish to be environmentally responsible. However, a one-size-fits-all approach often does not work. The meat industry welcomes discussion of revising the rules but would like more input than a long, complicated survey and limited site visits.”