EPA Drops Proposed Rules to Limit Slaughterhouse Waste Pollution

The Environmental Protection Agency has axed proposed rules aimed at reducing pollution from slaughterhouse waste, including animal manure and blood. The proposal was initially advanced during the Biden administration. The EPA says, among other things, the withdrawal of the proposed new rule is an action that “advances the goals of President Trump’s executive actions on defeating the cost-of-living crisis and unleashing prosperity through deregulation.” The withdrawn rule was meant to reduce pollutants from animal blood, bone, muscle, manure and other sources, all of which are carried in wastewater from meat and poultry slaughterhouses.

The abandonment of the proposed rule, titled the Clean Water Act Effluent Limitations Guidelines and Standards for the Meat and Poultry Products Point Source Category, was announced over Labor Day weekend.

Livestock operations in the U.S. produce 1.4 billion tons of manure and other waste, much of which is stored until it can be applied to crop fields, where mis- and overapplication can lead to the leaching of nutrients into nearby waterways. Slaughterhouses are also a source of pollution. Based on USDA slaughter figures for cattle, pigs, sheep and poultry, and EPA averages for the amount of wastewater produced per pound of live animal killed, Sentient estimates that slaughterhouses produced about 71 billion gallons of wastewater in 2024.

The proposed Biden-era rule aimed to tighten how slaughterhouse pollution is regulated. For example, the current rule, which was amended in 2004, limits fecal coliform bacteria — a group that includes E. coli — as well as nitrogen and ammonia in the water, but it only applies to about 150 of America’s 5,000 or so meat and poultry slaughterhouses, and does not cover phosphorus, a chemical element found in animal blood.
Too much phosphorus in the water causes algae to grow excessively, depleting the oxygen. Low-oxygen waters can destroy aquatic life and increase production of methane and nitrous oxide.

In its proposed new rule, Biden EPA officials wrote that the slaughterhouse industry “discharges large quantities of nutrients, such as nitrogen and phosphorus, that enter the Nation’s waters. Nutrient pollution is one of the most widespread, costly, and challenging environmental problems impacting water quality in the United States.” The decision to reverse the rule tracks with the Trump administration’s push to scale back on environmental regulations.

How Slaughterhouses Pollute Water

Nitrogen and phosphorus are found in animal blood, bone, muscle and manure but the main polluting agent in slaughterhouse wastewater is blood, according to the Center for Biological Diversity. Recent blood pollution incidents include reports of crimson-colored discharge flowing from a Monroeville slaughterhouse in New Jersey, pig blood leaking into the storm water system in Austin, Minnesota and red-tinted water flowing into a creek in Postville, Iowa.

Every year, slaughterhouses and rendering facilities “discharge hundreds of millions of pounds of nitrogen and phosphorus, collectively known as nutrient pollution, along with heavy metals and dozens of other pollutants, into rivers and streams across the United States,” according to Earthjustice, a U.S. environmental advocacy group.

Problems linked to excessive nitrogen and phosphorus in surface water, the EPA’s initial proposal said, include “eutrophication and harmful algal blooms, that have negative impacts on human health and the environment.” It went on to say that “excess nutrients in aquatic environments … [can limit] the ability of the waterbody to support aquatic life. Examples include biodiversity loss, impacts to fish development and reproduction, as well as fish kills from hypoxic, or deoxygenated, waters.”

Currently, there are no federal standards governing phosphorus discharges from slaughterhouses, says Alexis Andiman, senior attorney at Earthjustice. “EPA has said that slaughterhouses and rendering facilities are the leading industrial dischargers of phosphorus water pollution. But right now, EPA’s water pollution control standards don’t control phosphorus at all.” Nitrogen, meanwhile, is somewhat regulated but the “EPA itself has repeatedly indicated that stricter regulations would be appropriate,” Andiman says.

The EPA under Biden had put forward three options in its rule proposal. Depending on which was eventually adopted, Earthjustice estimates that pollution from phosphorus and nitrogen would have been reduced anywhere from 15 to or as much as 85 percent.

Slaughterhouse Pollution Regulations Will Remain Patchy and Inconsistent

Most slaughterhouse pollution will remain unregulated by the EPA thanks to the new rule, says Andiman. This is because the EPA’s existing regulations do not cover slaughterhouses that discharge indirectly — meaning they send water pollution to publicly owned treatment works, she says. “Right now, EPA’s regulations cover only the direct dischargers” — those that pipe waste directly to rivers and streams — “but the vast majority of the industry consists of indirect dischargers … meaning their pollution is totally uncontrolled at the federal level.”

Under the withdrawn rule, the most stringent regulatory option would have required indirect dischargers to comply with new treatment standards for nitrogen and phosphorus, she says.

Without the new rules, Andiman says the EPA is essentially “allowing slaughterhouses and rendering facilities to continue to pollute,” even though it has acknowledged that “slaughterhouse and rendering facility pollution adversely affects over 60 million Americans,” people living “within one mile of a stream or river potentially impacted” by slaughterhouse discharge. According to the EPA, some of the proposed rules would have improved pollution in Black, Asian and Hispanic communities.

Andiman says the suggestion that Americans must choose between clean water and affordable food is a false dichotomy. “EPA’s own economic analysis shows that that’s not the case here. It’s possible to reduce slaughterhouse pollution and to do it without putting businesses at risk,” Andiman says. A chart in the analysis shows compliance with the proposed new rules would mean possible meat price increases of, at most, 0.05 percent.

EPA’s Decision Risks More Suffocation and Overwhelm

Farm animal advocacy staff attorney at Vermont’s Animal Law and Policy Institute, Taylor Waters, says withdrawing the rule means the risks of marine animal suffocation and water treatment plant overwhelm — where water cleaning machinery is pushed to its limits — will continue.

Animal blood is “incredibly risky,” says Waters. “As soon as it enters a waterway, it basically sucks all of the air out of it. It removes all of the oxygen,” Waters tells Sentient. If animal blood finds its way directly into a river or stream it can suffocate plant and animal life, she says, or, if it goes to a treatment facility, it risks overwhelming normal treatment capacities. Either way, she says, “it’s a huge, huge environmental issue.”

In response to criticisms of its rule withdrawal, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin told Sentient that the “EPA is saving billions of dollars in costs the American people would otherwise see increases in the prices of the meat and poultry they buy at the grocery store while ensuring the protection of human health and the environment,” a statement that was included in an EPA press release.

The EPA email adds that it is “factually incorrect” to claim animal blood is unregulated, but did not address other criticisms including the issues of nitrogen and phosphorus pollution, unsafe drinking water or risks that waterways will be unfit for outdoor recreation or aquatic life. The email goes on to say that the “Trump EPA is committed to protecting human health and the environment and ensuring access to clean air, land, and water for ALL Americans. Environmental protection and powering our economy are not binary choices — we can and will do both.” The EPA’s decision comes at a particularly bad time, Waters says, as the Trump administration has also removed limits on line speeds at chicken and pork slaughterhouses.“ This means there will be even more blood and other byproduct discharge going through systems for rendering and treatment that could completely overrun water treatment facilities and natural waterways.”