Wednesday February 8, 2023
Reuters —
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency missed deadlines to update pollution standards for ballast discharges from ships, according to a lawsuit filed by environmental groups claiming the government’s inaction is threatening American waters.
Friends of the Earth and the Center for Biological Diversity said in a lawsuit filed in federal court in San Francisco on Monday that the EPA was more than two years late in developing new standards for ship pollution as mandated by Congress.
A 2018 amendment to the Clean Water Act required the agency by 2020’s end to develop new standards that could incorporate new technologies to protect against invasive species and human pathogens being dumped into U.S. waterways, the lawsuit said.
Those discharges cause an estimated $9 billion in annual damages to U.S. industry, coastlands and aquatic resources, according to the complaint.