Michael Regan can not catch a break from Louisianans. 

Final month, as Regan, administrator of the U.S. Environmental Safety Company (EPA), tightened air pollution controls within the state, he drew hearth. 

Congressman Clay Higgins (R-La.), an trade proponent, mentioned Regan was doing an excessive amount of, calling Regan an “EPA felony” in an April 8 submit on X, and saying that he needs to be arrested if he visited Louisiana.

This week, environmentalists contended that Regan is falling brief at his job.

On Thursday, a handful of environmental teams notified the EPA of its intent to sue the company and Regan in his capability as head of the company. 

The Environmental Integrity Venture, the Waterkeeper Alliance and the Heart for Organic Variety are poised to sue the EPA over its failure to carry out duties required by the Clear Water Act, in response to the discover, which highlights the EPA’s failure to submit a required biennial state water-quality report and evaluation to Congress.

The Clear Water Act requires the EPA to submit an evaluation each two years, however the final time the EPA filed such a report with Congress was in 2017. 

In a parallel effort, greater than 50 environmental teams, together with three from Louisiana — the Water Collaborative of Higher New Orleans, Atchafalaya Basinkeeper and Wholesome Gulf — signed a letter on Thursday, pushing the EPA to difficulty the identical, long-overdue water-quality report. 

“Congress made biennial water high quality experiences from EPA obligatory for good motive – they’re vital for lawmakers to find out the effectiveness of the Clear Water Act,” mentioned Kelly Hunter Foster, senior lawyer for the Waterkeeper Alliance. 

Pointers for the discharge of wastewater from petrochemical and plastics crops are much more remiss. They haven’t been up to date since 1993, 31 years in the past. 

That permits industries to launch much more polllutants, with out detection by the EPA. Or so the Environmental Integrity Venture discovered, in an evaluation of the wastewater-discharge information supplied by 31 petrochemical and plastic crops nationwide. 

The evaluation discovered that earlier EPA experiences underestimated the quantity of water air pollution launched by crops.

In its examination, the Environmental Integrity Venture centered on the discharge of vitamins corresponding to nitrogen and phosphorus inside wastewater. These vitamins create excellent situations for dangerous algal blooms, which may trigger oxygen-depleted zones that suffocate fish and different aquatic life downstream.

The environmentalists concerned felt just like the hurt was too nice to proceed unchecked. 

“The EPA has obscured important details about waterway air pollution and aquatic ecosystem well being for seven years, leaving us no selection however to launch this lawsuit,” mentioned Hannah Connor, deputy director of environmental well being on the Heart for Organic Variety.

The vast majority of the crops studied are positioned in Louisiana and Texas. Three of the highest 5 polluters are in Louisiana, whereas the remaining two are in Texas. Wastewater enters the Mississippi River from most of the crops, together with Union Carbide Company and Dow Chemical – Plaquemine. One other plant, Westlake Lake Charles South, releases wastewater into the Calcasieu River, which has been badly polluted for many years.

The Environmental Integrity Venture additionally questioned the contents of wastewater launched from the world’s largest ammonia manufacturing facility, CF Industries’ Donaldsonville Nitrogen Advanced, an hour west of New Orleans. 

Although not included within the examine, information from 2021 exhibits that the CF Industries fertilizer plant discharged into the Mississippi River greater than 3.1 million kilos of complete nitrogen, the wastewater equal of 25 municipal sewage-treatment crops. 

Advocates say that the EPA’s oversight of wastewater plummeted almost 25 years in the past.

“EPA’s effluent limitation tips have been on life help since most of its employees and funds have been transferred to different applications in 2000,” mentioned Betsy Southerland, former director of EPA’s Workplace of Science and Know-how. “Consequently, the discharge of business pollution — posing critical dangers to public well being and the setting, together with newly acknowledged pollution corresponding to PFAS — has continued unabated for many years.”

Of their letter to the EPA, the greater than 50 environmental organizations emphasised the urgency of finishing the belated water-quality report. They cited analysis from the Environmental Integrity Venture discovering that about half of the rivers and lakes within the nation are so polluted that they’re unsuitable for fishing, swimming and different public makes use of that the Clear Water Act was enacted to guard.

Additionally, the organizations have requested the EPA to decide to a revision of its outdated air pollution limits for industrial discharge, which frequently date again 50 or 60 years.

In 2019, they be aware, the U.S. Courtroom of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ordered that the Clear Water Act be up to date as applied sciences advance, to correctly restrict air pollution discharges. 

The courtroom chastised the EPA for taking so lengthy to replace its tips for steam-electric energy crops, whose tips have been final up to date “in the course of the second 12 months of President Reagan’s first time period, the identical 12 months that noticed the discharge of the primary CD participant, the Sony Watchman pocket tv, and the Commodore 64 house pc. In different phrases, 1982.”

The wastewater discharge tips for these energy crops have been lastly tightened in 2024.

Threats from Louisiana’s political powers

Final month, Rep. Higgins’ outburst got here after the EPA introduced a main regulatory change on April 9 to scale back poisonous air air pollution coming from greater than 200 chemical crops throughout the U.S. 

The brand new requirements are meant to chop cancer-causing emissions for folks residing close to petrochemical crops. 

Higgins’ tweet referred to as for Regan to be charged with extortion. “I’d cost him a depend for each Louisiana worker he’s threatening. Ship that conceited prick to (the Louisiana State Penitentiary at) Angola for just a few many years,” he wrote. 

It appears as if the Louisiana staff he references are staff from the Denka Efficiency Elastomer plant in Reserve. 

The brand new rules goal the plant’s heavy emissions of ethylene oxide and chloroprene, two cancer-causing chemical compounds that spew into the air surrounding Fifth Ward Elementary College, which sits adjoining to the Denka facility.

In response to Higgins’ submit, Sharon Lavigne, founding father of RISE St. James and a 2024 Time Influential Individual of the 12 months, wrote an opinion piece within the Louisiana Illuminator, asking the Congressman why he responded to the brand new regulation with such hostility. 

“Ever since Regan got here to fulfill the members of RISE St. James Louisiana, Involved Residents of St. John and different neighborhood leaders throughout his 2021 Journey to Justice tour, he has labored laborious to maintain his guarantees to make life higher for fenceline communities, particularly people who proceed to expertise environmental racism,” she wrote.

Many fenceline neighborhood members within the river parishes felt aid after the EPA made its first modification to strengthen air air pollution tips in 30 years. 

And now, water/air pollution advocates await a response from Regan, mentioned Meg Parish, senior lawyer on the Environmental Integrity Venture.  

“The Clear Water Act can’t stay as much as its promise,” she mentioned, “if the EPA gained’t report on polluted waterways, as required, or replace its requirements to maintain tempo with know-how.”

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