Today, a group of environmental and community organizations from across the United States penned a joint letter to the EPA, asking the agency to use its emergency powers to intervene in the drinking water crises their communities face. 

Food & Water Watch Staff Attorney Tyler Lobdell said:

“Big Ag is poisoning America’s drinking water. From coast to coast, states are failing to protect rural communities from factory farms and other industrial-scale agricultural pollution. This free pass to pollute has profound implications for public health and the environment. EPA must step in now to stop this assault on our basic human right to clean water.”

The 22 groups represent rural communities from Iowa, Minnesota, Oregon, Washington, and Wisconsin, each of which share a common problem: nitrate contamination from industrial agriculture in drinking water. After years or even decades of frustration waiting for State governments to take action, the groups have joined together to request emergency intervention by the EPA under Section 1431 of the Safe Drinking Water Act, which provides US EPA with the authority to order actions when an “imminent and substantial endangerment exists” and the actions taken by the state and/or local authorities are inadequate to protect public health.

“This pollution poses an imminent and substantial endangerment to communities across the country, while state after state has failed to take the action necessary to protect the health of their own residents,” the letter states.

Following the drinking water crisis in Flint, Michigan, Congress reasserted that the original intent of Section 1431 was to prevent harm to communities due to drinking water contamination and that EPA held broad authority to exercise this emergency power to prevent that harm. The groups argue that EPA must intervene to prevent further harm, in alignment with that congressional intent.

Nitrate, which the EPA defines as an “acute contaminant,” primarily pollutes drinking water because of overuse or mismanagement of fertilizer or manure by industrial-scale agriculture. As a result, the nation’s rural and agricultural communities face increased risk of exposure to nitrate, and because nitrate is a colorless, odorless, tasteless contaminant, many of those impacted learn only after years of consuming contaminated water that it may have been affecting their health.

Nitrate in drinking water presents a serious health threat to anyone exposed, but is especially dangerous for infants, pregnant women, and people with certain blood disorders. Health studies have linked numerous types of cancer to long-term exposure to high nitrate concentrations in drinking water. Nitrate can also cause methemoglobinemia or “Blue Baby Syndrome,” which can be lethal to infants, and has been linked to miscarriages and birth defects as well.

Despite these risks and knowledge of the threat of nitrate contamination, state governments have failed to take sufficient action to protect residents from harm. The letter calls on EPA to implement a coordinated national approach to protecting rural communities from further harm and holding sources of nitrate pollution accountable. 

“Despite the well-documented risk elevated nitrate levels pose, state officials have allowed these problems to develop and persist, and are now failing to make timely and effective progress to rein the problem in and begin remediation of drinking water sources,” the letter states. “Nitrate contamination and the harm it poses to human health demands a national approach and response in light of the growing prevalence of the problem and the patchwork of ineffective state strategies.”

The groups have requested to meet with EPA’s Acting Assistant Administrator of Water, Bruno Pigott, to discuss how EPA can rise to the occasion and ensure that communities across the country have safe, clean drinking water free of nitrate. 

“It’s taken more than 34 years for the state of Oregon to acknowledge this public health crisis, rising contamination, and environmental injustice, and that’s only because of relentless rural grassroots pressure and the EPA,” said Kristin Anderson Ostrom, executive director of Oregon Rural Action. “It’s time for the EPA to intervene in this emergency directly, using the broad powers Congress has given them to prevent harm and protect the American public.”

“We need EPA to step in because Iowans deserve to be protected from high nitrate levels,” said Michael Schmidt, staff attorney for the Iowa Environmental Council. “We have endured drinking water contamination for decades and action to ensure our health is overdue.”

“We see this as a question of fairness,” said Leigh Currie, the chief legal officer for the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy. “People relying on well water deserve safe water just as much as those with access to a public water supply. And EPA needs to develop a federal, coordinated response to this national crisis so that all states can promise safe water to their residents.”