Groups Sue EPA For Unlawfully Using Clean Water Act To Let Factory Farms Pollute Secretly

Boise, ID— Today, Food & Water Watch and Snake River Waterkeeper filed suit against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for violating the Clean Water Act by allowing factory farms to avoid mandatory pollution monitoring.

The case challenges EPA’s General Permit for Idaho factory farms, or concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), and it was filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. 

While this is an Idaho-specific permit, the groups believe that a legal win could have national impact. The CAFO General Permit is meant to ensure that factory farms comply with pollution restrictions that protect waterways for recreation, fishing, wildlife, and other uses. 

In Idaho alone, there are several hundred factory farms that produce vast quantities of pollutants like E.coli, nitrogen, phosphorus, pharmaceuticals, and heavy metals. This industry, which remains largely unregulated, has contributed to the 2,000 miles of streams and rivers that are now considered impaired by pollutants commonly associated with factory farm waste. 

The federal Clean Water Act is meant to control pollution from CAFOs and other “point source” dischargers through a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit that relies on self-monitoring and reporting of discharges.

EPA has let CAFOs off the hook with the Idaho General Permit by failing to include meaningful pollution monitoring requirements.

“Factory farms have flocked to Idaho to take advantage of lax oversight and industry-friendly politicians, with the predictable results of more pollution, degraded lakes and rivers, and fewer sustainable, small-scale family farms,” said Tyler Lobdell, Staff Attorney for Food & Water Watch. “EPA’s permit will allow this pollution to continue unabated by making it all but impossible to hold CAFOs accountable for illegal pollution, in clear violation of the Clean Water Act and EPA’s own regulations.” 

“Factory farm accountability in Idaho is long past due. Getting this permit right - and requiring factory farms to monitor their pollution - would be a good start toward meaningful regulation of the manure disposal practices that make this industry so devastating to the Snake River’s water quality,” said Buck Ryan, Executive Director of Snake River Waterkeeper. 

Food & Water Watch and Earthrise Law Center represent the plaintiffs.