Posted September 24, 2013
On Friday, a U.S. District Judge ruled that the
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has six months to decide whether to set
Clean Water Act (CWA) standards for nitrogen and phosphorus in all U.S.
waterways or explain why they are not necessary, according to Janet
McConnaughey of the Associated Press in an article available here.
The “dead zone” is an oxygen-depleted area in the Gulf
of Mexico. Every summer, nutrients feed
algae blooms at the mouth of the Mississippi river. “Algae and the protozoa that eat them die and
fall to the bottom, where their decomposition uses up oxygen. That creates an area on the sea bottom
averaging nearly 5,800 square miles – larger than the state of Connecticut—where
there is too little oxygen for aquatic life.”
The lawsuit was filed over a year ago by the Natural
Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and other groups, challenging the EPA’s denial
of the Mississippi River Collaborative’s 2008 petition to EPA asking it to
establish quantifiable standards and cleanup plans for nitrogen and phosphorus
pollution, according to an NRDC press release available here. The plaintiffs argued that EPA “had
unlawfully refused to respond to the question posed to it, which is whether
such federal action is necessary to comply with the Clean Water Act.”
U.S. District Judge Jay Zainey agreed with the plaintiffs,
holding that the EPA’s refusal to provide a direct answer was unlawful. The decision does not direct the EPA on how
to address the problem, only to make a decision on the issue. The decision is available here.
Kelly Foster, Senior Attorney for the Waterkeeper
Alliance, said, “It should be apparent that pollution limits are essential to
controlling pollution. With this
decision, we are hopeful that EPA will finally do what it has long known is
necessary to address the Gulf Dead Zone and the staggering number of other
fisheries, water supplies and recreational waters decimated by nitrogen and
phosphorus pollution across the nation.”
Bradley Klein, senior staff attorney for the
Environmental Law & Policy Center, said, “This isn’t just about the Dead
Zone in the Gulf of Mexico. Algae blooms
threaten the Great Lakes – and smaller waterways across the nation are being
impacted by this huge problem.”
A federal judge in Virginia recently upheld EPA’s plan
to set and enforce nutrient standards in the Chesapeake Bay. For more information on this case, a post from this blog is available here.
