Slaughterhouse Rules: How our lawsuit led to a national effort to curb meat processing pollution

Industrial livestock processing plants are a huge source of America’s water pollution, dumping millions of gallons of waste into our rivers, lakes and seas. This pollution includes high levels of nitrogen and phosphorus which contribute to toxic algal blooms and dead zones off our coasts. 

 For example, the Pilgrim’s Pride poultry facility in Live Oaks dumped 379,641 pounds of toxic pollution into the Suwannee River in 2014, according to data from U.S EPA’s Toxics Release Inventory. We were particularly alarmed by this pollution because the middle Suwannee River is famous for its 62 freshwater springs, is home to several state parks, and is part of the Florida Trail and the Suwannee River Wilderness Trail, a paddling route with river camp locations which receives over 43,000 visitors a year. 

Pilgrim’s Pride is the second-largest chicken producer in the world. Some of the facility’s pollution exceeded permit limits, so Environment Florida and the Sierra Club sued the company under the Clean Water Act.  We won a settlement in which the company agreed to pay $1.4M and undertake measures to reduce its water pollution. The Pilgrim’s Pride settlement was the highest citizen suit penalty in Florida history.

Inspired by our success, our sister organizations sought to curb pollution in other states.  But they ran into difficulty because the EPA has not updated pollution standards for  slaughterhouses since 2004. So unbelievably, much of the dumping was actually legal. Our national team at Environment America called on the EPA to update the standards, as required by the Clean Water Act. We published a fact sheet and a map showing how widespread the slaughterhouse pollution problem is in America and we engaged over 100 organizations to urge the EPA to act. When the agency still refused to update these standards, Environment America and several other organizations sued the agency in 2021 for failing to follow the Clean Water Act. 

In response to the legal action the EPA finally committed to updating the meat & poultry processing pollution standards and this month they took the first step. A new proposal was released that would cut water pollution from American slaughterhouses by 100 million pounds per year. The new proposed rule is one of a few options. The EPA also included alternative actions that could have an even larger impact, reducing pollution by up to two or three times more than their initial proposal. They have until August of 2025 to make a final rule.

Environment Florida and Environment America will actively advocate for the EPA to adopt the strongest rules possible to protect our waterways and coastal areas. No living thing should have to suffer from the results of slaughterhouse pollution in our waters. It compromises our health and the health of our planet and should not be tolerated.