March 3, 2004

Meat and Poultry Industry Hit By EPA Guidelines

Meat and poultry slaughtering and processing facilities in the United States could incur additional costs as a result of new limitation guidelines imposed by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

The EPA finalized a Clean Water Act rule prescribing additional wastewater treatment requirements at meat and poultry slaughtering and processing facilities late last week.

The Meat and Poultry Processing Effluent Limitation Guidelines (ELG) will institute new numerical limitations, technology requirements, and management practices for direct discharging, processing plants. Specifically, the rule establishes nitrogen limits for red meat of 134 monthly and 194 daily maximum and for poultry 103 monthly and 147 daily maximum. For red meat and poultry the ammonia limits are 4 monthly and 8 daily maximum. The new rule does not affect indirect-discharging plants.

EPA proposed the rule in January 2002. AMI, as part of a coalition of meat and poultry industry organizations, has worked since then to demonstrate to EPA the industry's engineering capabilities in wastewater treatment technologies and examined EPA¡¯s treatment goals and calculated associated costs.