Environmental groups sued the Environmental Protection Agency today for failing to set limits on harmful chemicals like cyanide, benzene, mercury and chlorides in wastewater emitted by oil refineries and plants that produce chemicals, fertilizer, plastics, pesticides and nonferrous metals.
The Clean Water Act requires the EPA to limit discharges of industrial pollutants based on the best available wastewater treatment methods, and to tighten those limits at least once every five years where data show treatment technologies have improved. But the agency has never set limits for many pollutants and has failed to update the few decades-old limits that exist — including limits set almost 40 years ago for oil refineries (1985), plastics manufacturers (1984) and fertilizer plants (1986).