Ted Evgeniadis

Ted Evgeniadis is the Lower Susquehanna Riverkeeper and the Lower Susquehanna Riverkeeper Association’s executive director.

The Susquehanna River is the lifeblood of Pennsylvania — providing drinking water, supporting fisheries and sustaining local economies.

But for decades, slaughterhouses and rendering plants have been allowed to treat our waterways as dumping grounds, releasing dangerous levels of nitrogen and phosphorus that fuel toxic algal blooms, create dead zones and threaten public health.

Despite the urgency, the Environmental Protection Agency decided to throw away its chance to finalize rulemaking to modernize woefully outdated pollution standards in favor of giving a free pass for this industry to continue business as usual.

In the face of the EPA’s blatant disregard for our public health, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection must deliver the strong protections our communities and our river desperately need.

Slaughterhouses and rendering facilities are the largest industrial source of phosphorus pollution and the second-largest source of nitrogen pollution in the United States. These contaminants choke our rivers, contaminate drinking water and devastate aquatic ecosystems.

Here in Pennsylvania, we’ve seen the consequences firsthand. There are more than 70 slaughterhouse and rendering facilities within the Lower Susquehanna River watershed alone, and we know that many of these are bypassing oversight by discharging improperly treated wastewater directly into municipal wastewater systems that were never built to handle that kind of load.

This further compounds the already excess burden that our communities bear from the more than 330 factory farms located within the basin, as well. As a result, excess nutrients, along with heavy metals and dangerous pathogens, pour overwhelmingly into the Susquehanna River, contributing to the Chesapeake Bay’s dead zones and harming fisheries that sustain local livelihoods.

The EPA’s own research confirms what we’ve long known: This pollution disproportionately harms low-income communities and communities of color. From the rural towns to urban neighborhoods, the same pattern repeats in communities burdened by slaughterhouse pollution — those with the fewest resources pay the highest price for the negligence of corporate polluters — and now of the EPA.

The Clean Water Act requires the EPA to set pollution standards based on the best available technology. Yet the agency’s decision to do nothing lets thousands of slaughterhouses and rendering plants off the hook, allowing them to continue dumping nitrogen and phosphorus into municipal wastewater systems that can’t handle the load.

Many of these treatment plants are already overburdened, meaning this pollution flows straight into our rivers, including the Susquehanna.

Even worse, during its now-abandoned rulemaking process, the EPA set a precedent of failing to meaningfully engage the communities most affected by this pollution. Only two virtual hearings and one in-person hearing in Washington, D.C., were offered — effectively shutting out rural Pennsylvanians and others who lack the resources to travel or participate online.

This isn’t just an oversight; it’s a systemic failure to listen to those who bear the brunt of industrial pollution. A failure that the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection must not replicate as it works to adopt comprehensive, protective water quality standards for the state’s slaughterhouse industry.

The Susquehanna is more than a river; it’s a vital resource for millions of people. But without strong action, its future and the health of our communities remain at risk.

The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection has a duty to step up to protect our waterways, not polluters’ profits.

Ted Evgeniadis is the Lower Susquehanna Riverkeeper and the Lower Susquehanna Riverkeeper Association’s executive director.

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