EPA sued over fertilizer pollution standards

The Iowa Environmental Council and other environmental groups have sued the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, contending the agency and the state of Iowa haven't done enough to keep nitrogen and phosphorus pollution from degrading water quality in Iowa, the Mississippi River basin and the Gulf of Mexico.

Excessive nitrogen and phosphorous from farm runoff and sewage treatment plants threaten drinking water, recreation in rivers and lakes and aquatic life, said Marian Riggs Gelb, executive director of the Iowa Environmental Council.

The groups contend that the federal Clean Water Act requires EPA to set numerical pollution limits on the commonly used fertilizer ingredients.

Susan Heathcote, water programs director for the Iowa Environmental Council, said she thinks political pressure has kept EPA from meeting that requirement.

“We don't take legal action very often, but this may be a case where the courts can give EPA the push they need to uphold the law,” she said.

One lawsuit, filed in federal court in New Orleans, appeals EPA's rejection last year of a petition seeking the limits. The second lawsuit asks a federal court in New York City to force EPA to respond to a petition seeking broad changes to sewage treatment standards. The environmental groups say the limits will help reduce pollution in the Gulf of Mexico, where a low-oxygen “dead zone” has been linked to fertilizer pollution from Iowa and 30 other states.

The EPA, which had once directed states to adopt specific limits on nitrogen and phosphorous pollution, last year advised states that they could be more flexible.

Iowa, which had been planning to implement specific pollution standards, then shifted to a nutrient reduction strategy without clearly identified pollution limits, according to Heathcote.

“We support state development of a nutrient reduction strategy, but we are concerned that it can't succeed without science-based pollution standards,” she said.