The environmental group Tennessee Riverkeeper is part of a coalition challenging a Jan. 31 decision by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency not to update industrial pollution control technology standards that, in some cases, are 50 years out of date.
“It’s an interesting lawsuit that has local, state and national implications, and it really gets at the root problem of so much pollution in Tennessee,” Tennessee Riverkeeper founder David Whiteside said in a phone interview. “If the permits are weak, they often ignore important pollution parameters. That, plus the nature of plastics and pesticides being so prevalent, the suit gets at those industries and that kind of pollution.”
Tennessee Riverkeeper and its coalition partners filed the lawsuit April 11 in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. The lawsuit accuses the federal agency of failing to set limits on harmful chemicals such as cyanide, benzene, mercury and chlorides in the billions of gallons of wastewater pouring out of U.S. oil refineries, chemical plants and factories that manufacture plastics, pesticides, fertilizer and nonferrous metals, according to a statement issued by Tennessee Riverkeeper and the coalition.
Other members of the coalition include Waterkeeper Alliance, Center For Biological Diversity, Clean Water Action, Food & Water Watch, Healthy Gulf, Environment America, Surfrider Foundation, Bayou City Waterkeeper, Black Warrior Riverkeeper, San Antonio Bay Estuarine Waterkeeper and San Francisco Baykeeper.