Iowa group among those suing EPA over water quality

The Iowa Environmental Council and other environmental groups have sued the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, saying 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 council.

The groups say the federal Clean Water Act requires the EPA to set numerical pollution limits on the commonly used fertilizer ingredients. Susan Heathcote, the council's water programs director, said she thinks political pressure has kept the agency from meeting the 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 the EPA's rejection last year of a petition seeking the limits. The second lawsuit asks a federal court in New York City to force the agency 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.

The EPA once directed states to adopt specific limits on nitrogen and phosphorous pollution, but last year it said 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.