The Economic and Water Impacts of the EPA’s “Slaughterhouse” Rule

As global meat production continues to rise to meet a projected doubling of meat-based protein consumption by 2050, corporate owners of these large facilities are not incentivized to modernize their systems, treat their waste, and control their discharges that typically contains nitrogen and phosphorus, as well as blood, fat, oil and grease, fecal bacteria, disease-causing pathogens, detergents, and heavy metals. Without regulatory scrutiny and guardrails, “Big Agriculture” will persist in operating without consequences, reaping all the profits while communities drown in its toxic brew of pollution.

According to EPA’s data, there are 5,055 slaughterhouses and rendering facilities in the U.S. and 3,879 of those facilities are discharging approximately 112 million pounds of nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus into 2,736 water bodies every year. These massive, untreated discharges are directly linked to significant impacts like water contamination and algal blooms, which can render water unsafe for drinking, unfit for recreation, and uninhabitable for aquatic life. Communities exposed to nitrogen compounds in drinking water are linked to higher incidences of colorectal cancer, thyroid disease, birth defects, and —in infants under six months of age— “blue baby syndrome,” a potentially fatal condition.

While industry takes advantage of the economic benefits of their polluting business practices, they simultaneously jeopardize the future of rural America’s economic development in multiple ways. Local economies suffer from the devastating consequences of nutrient-fueled algal blooms, which deplete oxygen in water and result in fish kills and “dead zones” in iconic water bodies like the Chesapeake Bay and the Gulf of Mexico. Hazardous pollution from large slaughterhouses disproportionately impacts local drinking water sources, fisheries, recreation, and tourism in rural areas, while also harming community health and finances.

Contaminated water and land represent significant economic liabilities, with pollution from large slaughterhouses driving down property values for residences and businesses while escalating public health risks and associated costs. Further, the dominance of large processing facilities over smaller, less polluting plants negatively affects small and family-owned farms that rely on these independent local facilities for processing.

The pollution originating from slaughterhouses and rendering facilities also compounds environmental injustice, disproportionately affecting low-income communities and communities of color. EPA data reveals that 74% of slaughterhouses directly discharging pollution into rivers and streams are located within one mile of under-resourced and low-income communities, as well as communities of color. Despite this acknowledgment, the agency has taken minimal action to shield these vulnerable communities from the unequal burdens imposed by corporate interests. Instead of perpetuating these injustices, EPA has an opportunity to right this wrong through proposed new water pollution control standards for larger, more polluting slaughterhouses and rendering plants while avoiding significant impacts and costs to small firms and facilities.

Unfortunately, the agency’s current preferred rulemaking option – Option 1 – is the weakest option and would still allow thousands of larger slaughterhouses and rendering plants to continue their business-as-usual practices that create local environmental and economic harm. At a minimum, EPA must adopt the pollution standards set forth in the proposed rule Option 3, which would include nitrogen, phosphorus, and conventional pollutant limits on 133 facilities that directly discharge pollutants into waterways and 1,485 facilities that discharge to municipal wastewater treatment plants. EPA estimates that Option 3 will cut the total amount of nitrogen pollution from the industry by 83 percent (or 76 million pounds annually) and phosphorus pollution by 94 percent (or 20 million pounds) with tangible public health, environmental, and economic benefits for communities and local businesses.

It is crucial for EPA to address pollution stemming from larger slaughterhouses and rendering facilities, including those indirectly discharging waste to municipal wastewater treatment plants. These treatment plants are frequently overstressed, underfinanced, and ill-equipped to handle industrial waste. Continuing this practice allows the industry’s waste and harmful pollutants to pass through the system and discharge into waterways, likely contributing to 73 percent of treatment plants evaluated by EPA violating their Clean Water Act permit limits, and forcing the clean-up costs onto the public. EPA has also determined that interference from discharges to municipal wastewater treatment plants is costly in terms of worker safety, physical plant integrity, effectiveness of operation, and liability for permit violations.

It is important to note that there is effective technology that is readily available and widely used for wastewater treatment globally, which slaughterhouses and rendering plants can use to comply with the pollution standards in EPA’s proposed rule. Under Option 3, industry compliance with the pollution standards is also economically achievable. For instance, EPA projects that 99.1 percent of discharging facilities would incur expenses amounting to less than one percent of their revenues to comply with Option 3 limits for nitrogen and phosphorus. By modernizing major corporate processors, stringent water pollution standards would stimulate investments in American infrastructure and foster employment opportunities in rural areas, including an estimated net increase of 1,603 local jobs for operating and maintaining the industry’s upgraded treatment technology.

It is evident, both environmentally and economically, that EPA must correct its decades-long inaction by firmly rejecting industry influence and committing to a modernized, robust regulatory framework that supports an investment in the health and sustainability of rural communities, life-supporting waterways, and the economy. Our communities deserve nothing less than the highest level of clean water protections as mandated by law.

Article by Marc Yaggi is Chief Executive Officer of Waterkeeper Alliance, a U.S.-based, global water advocacy organization. Before joining Waterkeeper Alliance, Marc was a Senior Attorney and Watershed Program Director for Riverkeeper, Inc. and previously served as a Staff Attorney with the Environmental Law Institute in Washington, D.C. He has a degree in Administration of Justice from The Pennsylvania State University and a J.D. and an LL.M in Environmental Law from the Pace University School of Law.