U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin has announced a final action imposing no additional wastewater discharge regulations on meat and poultry processing facilities. "Informed by concerns expressed in public comments received on the proposed rule and a comprehensive review of the 2024 proposal, the agency has decided not to move forward with additional, burdensome Effluent Limitation Guidelines (ELGs) or pretreatment standards for this industry," the agency said in a statement.
On January 23, 2024, EPA published a proposed regulation to revise existing ELGs and pretreatment standards for the meat and poultry products industry. ELGs are national industry-specific wastewater regulations based on the performance of demonstrated wastewater treatment technologies (often called “technology-based limits”). The American Association of Meat Processors, among other industry organizations, had called for the EPA to pause any implementation. The final guidelines were to have been announced at the end of 2024.
AAMP's position is that we want our members to operate in an environmentally friendly manner. Our processor members, whether they use their public works or operate wastewater lagoons, maintain procedures to ensure that they are being good neighbors for their communities. During the process of creating these proposed regulations, EPA did not do proper due diligence in data collecting to understand if a problem was truly prevalent throughout the entire industry or just in a handful of establishments. The agency's proposed effluent guidelines could have resulted in capital expenditure costs that would have driven many small processors out of business. We are glad to hear that the EPA is not moving forward with these guidelines.
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