A reason to celebrate.
This week, however, was a little different for fans of the Clean Water Act as well as the most famous river in Florida.
That's because a coalition of environmental groups, led by Environment Florida and its parent organization, Environment America, scored a victory against an industry responsible for a sizable chunk of the pollution that's plaguing airways and waterways: meat.
On Wednesday, the groups announced a record settlement in a lawsuit they filed agains Pilgrim's Pride, the second largest butcherer of chickens in the world, for noxious volumes of waste it dumps from a Live Oak plant into the Suwannee River.
As we reported in March, the Pilgrim's Pride plant wasn't just dumping who-knows-what into the Suwannee; it's allowed to do that within limits. It was doing so at three times the acceptable levels they're legally allowed to dump, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection's own data showed.
Assuming U.S. District Judge Timothy J. Corrigan approves the settlement, it could result in Pilgrim's Pride having to make mandatory upgrades to equipment at the facility, look into "the possibility of eliminating or significantly reducing all discharges to the Suwannee River" and possibly even pay a significant penalty under the Clean Water Act — $1 million of which would help farmers in the immediate area reduce their own potentially harmful waste.
“This Pilgrim’s settlement gives the Suwannee River a lot to be thankful for,” John Rumpler, clean water program director for Environment America, said in a written statement. “At least for this one river, the world’s second-largest chicken company is moving from being part of the pollution problem to part of the solution.”
The Live Oak plant is one of 14 facilities of its kind Pilgrim's Pride — a subsidiary of Brazilian meat conglomerate JMS — operates in the U.S., including Puerto Rico. They supply chicken meat to Publix, KFC, Wendy's and Walmart.
The coalition argued in its complaint that byproducts from the Live Oak plant caused higher levels of nitrogen in the river (which can encourage harmful algae growth), “biological oxygen demand,” which can lead to oxygen deprivation in aquatic organisms and other occurrences not conducive to a healthy waterway.
Although DEP was sampling water downstream from the plant and finding elevated levels of stuff that shouldn't be there, they weren't enforcing the rules. So Environment Florida and others stepped in.
“Our state officials were not doing enough to protect one of Florida's most important rivers so we stepped in as citizen enforcers of the Clean Water Act,” said Jennifer Rubiello, state director of Environment Florida, in a statement. “This great outcome demonstrates the importance of citizen lawsuits.”
The Environmental Protection Agency and DEP have 45 days to weigh in.
Given that all parties involved — including the polluter — have agreed to the settlement, members of the coalition are optimistic that the settlement will go through.
This article appears in Nov 16-23, 2017.