Lawsuit filed over fertilizer pollution

A lawsuit has been filed against the Environmental Protection Agency for not doing enough to keep fertilizer pollution out of waterways. The Iowa Environmental Council has joined other groups in suing the EPA over its inability to set numerical limits on nitrogen and phosphorus in waterways under the Clean Water Act.

The current lawsuit stems from EPA’s rejection of a petition filed by the groups in 2008. The groups say the rejection of their petition was a violation of federal administrative rules and was arbitrary, the Des Moines Register reported.

“This is a massive, multi-state problem, but the EPA has not accepted its responsibility for leadership on this issue, and state responses—including in Iowa—have languished as a result,” Marian Riggs Gelb, executive director of the Iowa Environmental Council, told the Des Moines Register. “In addition to the Gulf dead zone, excessive amounts of nitrogen and phosphorus from farm runoff and sewage treatment plants wreak havoc here in Iowa as well, threatening drinking water, recreation in our lakes and rivers, and aquatic life here and downstream.”

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