Watchdog says EPA failing to prevent plastic plant pollution | Environment

Federal regulators have failed to update rules that could prevent Louisiana plastics plants from releasing pollutants linked to cancer and poor water quality into rivers, a new report from an environmental watchdog group alleges.

The Environmental Integrity Project looked at the pollution records of 70 U.S. plastics factories, mostly in Louisiana and Texas, in the report released Thursday. While the plastics industry has ballooned over the past couple decades, the group says that federal regulations are out of date. 

“Louisiana is incredibly overburdened,” Kira Dunham, the report’s lead author, said. “Regulations haven’t been updated in over 30 years despite EPA mandates that they do so.” 

The group alleges that the EPA failed to comply with its mandate under the Clean Water Act. The law requires the agency to set limits for harmful chemicals released into waterways, and review these limits every five years as technology improves, it says. 

There are rules in place for some toxic pollutants, but the group says other chemicals have been neglected. 

“Many harmful chemicals released by plastics manufacturers are completely unregulated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency – including contaminants that scientists have identified as carcinogenic or otherwise harmful to human health,” the report states. 

The EPA said it planned to review the report and declined to comment further for now. The Louisiana Chemical Association and companies named in the report had not responded to requests for comment.

The watchdog group looked at plants that produce common plastics or key plastics ingredients, and then discharge wastewater into waterways.

The lack of regulations means that facilities are not violating rules when it comes to these wastewater discharges, though many of the facilities have other Clean Water Act violations. States have the authority to set stricter limits than federal standards, Dunham explained, but this rarely happens. None of the top dioxin dischargers in Louisiana, for instance, had permit limits on the chemical. 

The facilities on the list are those that have to self-report their data to EPA.

‘It doesn’t make any sense’

Dioxins, a pollutant that the EPA says can cause cancer as well as reproductive, developmental and immune problems, was among the chemicals studied. They can remain in the environment for long periods and accumulate as they move up the food chain.

Based on the EPA’s dioxin limits for drinking water, one droplet in around 44 backyard swimming pools would violate standards. While the pollutant is tightly regulated for drinking water, that is not the case for wastewater being released from plastics and chemical plants into rivers, the organization says.

Most of the top ten dioxin dischargers in the report were in Louisiana, with the Westlake Eagle US 2 plant in Lake Charles responsible for the third-highest release for dioxin and dioxin-like compounds nationwide in 2022, it said. Other top dioxide dischargers in the state include Dow Plaquemine and Westlake Vinyls Geismar.

All of the Louisiana facilities featured were in Calcasieu Parish or the industrial corridor between New Orleans and Baton Rouge that advocates dub “Cancer Alley.”

Dunham said the prevalence of dioxin in Louisiana stood out in the national study.

“It’s an incredibly harmful pollutant and it doesn’t make any sense that the EPA hasn’t set federal limits,” Dunham said.

‘Belong to the public’

In addition to dioxins, Louisiana plastics facilities were also releasing some of the highest levels of two chemicals — nitrogen and phosphorous — that can contribute to low-oxygen dead zones and toxic algae, according to the report. These consequences impact fishers as well as local ecosystems, Dunham explained. 

The study highlighted the Dow Plaquemine plant in Iberville Parish, which discharged over two million pounds of nitrogen and 240,000 pounds of phosphorous in the Mississippi River last year. A majority of people in the surrounding area are people of color and about a third are low-income, the report notes.

Two companies — Shintech Plaquemine and Westlake Chemical and Vinyls Plaquemine — discharged hundreds of thousands of pounds of nitrogen and phosphorous into the river, it said. This area also has environmental justice concerns, as more than 75 percent of the residents around these two plants are people of color and nearly half are low-income. 

The Environmental Integrity Project wants the EPA to update its guidelines for these chemicals, improve monitoring requirements in state permits and increase enforcement of Clean Water Act violations. While the plastics facilities were not violating federal law through their discharge of chemicals like dioxins or phosphorous, many have other pollution violations on their recent records.

LACC in Westlake, Shintech Plaquemine and Westlake Eagle US 2 in Lake Charles had some of the most water pollution violations among the studied facilities. While LACC saw a penalty of $23,000, the report found that enforcement actions overall were sparse. 

“Even when there are weak limits, there are violations,” said EIP executive director Jen Duggan. 

Updating Clean Water Act regulations to match technological advances “isn’t discretionary,” she said, but required under the law. 

“These are public resources,” she said. “They belong to the public. They’re not dumping grounds for private companies.”