Ohio’s hog farmers are seeking intervenor status in a lawsuit environmental activists have filed over Lake Erie pollution and algae blooms.
The Environmental Law and Policy Center (ELPC) in Chicago filed its lawsuit against the United States Environmental Protection Agency on May 1 and now the Ohio Pork Council is asking the court to allow it to participate in the court case.
The council says the activist group has no evidence to support its claim that the Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) of nutrients such a phosphorous into the Western Lake Erie Basin (known as the Maumee Watershed Nutrient TMDL) is insufficient to meet both Ohio and federal water quality standards.
This is the third time the organization has sought tighten pollution restrictions on manure and fertilizer nutrients entering the western part of Lake Erie.
On the Canadian side, there have been complaints that so far the Canadian government has done little to honour its commitment to lower the same pollutants from entering the lake.
The Ohio agricultural groups are defendimg the Environment Protection Agency.
“Today as unified group of farmer-based organizations in Ohio, we’re saying that it’s time for these unscientific and baseless lawsuits to come to a halt,” said Cheryl Day, executive vice president of the Ohio Pork Council.
“Our family farmers work hard every day to ensure that they are implementing best nutrient management practices and adhering to regulations that protect the water quality in the Western Lake Erie Basin and across the state.
“Let’s agree to move forward with facts and science, as the federal and state regulators have been doing, and stop wasting everyone’s time and resources on needless lawsuits,” she said in a news release.
