Taking EPA to Court to Defend Montana’s Waters
This week, Upper Missouri Waterkeeper and Flathead Lakers filed a lawsuit against the Trump Administration’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for approving Montana’s repeal of science-based limits on nutrient pollution for our waterways.
EPA’s approval allows the State of Montana to abandon clear, measurable pollution limits and replace them with vague, unenforceable rules, putting our clean water, cold-water fisheries, drinking water, human health, outdoor recreation economy, and agricultural heritage at risk of decline.
We’re taking the EPA to court because this rollback is illegal, unscientific, and unprecedented.
What Changed and Why it Matters
For more than a decade, Montana had numeric nutrient water quality standards – science-based measurable limits on nitrogen and phosphorus pollution, which is known to cause algal blooms, degrade aquatic habitat, and contaminate drinking water.
These standards were based on decades of science and gave regulators and permit writers clear tools to hold polluters accountable.
Now, Montana has repealed those numeric limits and replaced them with narrative standards – vague, subjective, and reactive rules that only trigger action after visible pollution and harm has already occurred. This allows pollution in our waterways to increase before regulators step in, permits no longer contain clear pollution limits, and communities, wildlife, and downstream users will bear the costs of pollution cleanup and restoration.
An Unprecedented Repeal of Clean Water Laws
Montana, home to the headwaters of the county’s longest river system and a critical headwaters state, was a national leader on controlling nutrient pollution. In 2014, it became the first state in the nation to adopt dual numeric nutrient standards to protect waterways from nutrient pollution.
Fast forward to today, and for the first time in the 53-year history of the Clean Water Act, strong, science-based nutrient standards are being fully rolled back due to political pressure from polluting sectors. Never before has a state adopted numeric nutrient standards and then walked back on them, until now.
This isn’t about improving protections for our waterways, it’s about making it easier to pollute and harder to hold polluters accountable for the degradation they inflict on our environment.
EPA Failed to Follow the Law
Before approving changes to water quality standards, such as this rollback, EPA is legally required to evaluate the environmental consequences and consult with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service to ensure endangered species and critical habitat will not be harmed. Here, EPA approved the repeal of Montana’s numeric nutrient standards without doing their homework.
Despite knowing for months that Montana was eliminating numeric standards, EPA sent its biological analysis to FWS just three days before approving the repeal, giving far too little time for meaningful review.
Approving this rollbackout without proper scientific analysis and consultation violates the Endangered Species Act and the Clean Water Act, which is why we’re challenging this in court.
Why Nutrient Pollution is a Serious Threat to Waterway Health
Nutrient pollution is one of the most pervasive pollution sources in Montana’s waterways.
Excess nitrogen and phosphorus fuel algal blooms that deplete oxygen and kill fish, degrade aquatic habitat, contaminate drinking water supplies, and threaten recreation and local economies that depend on clean and healthy rivers.
Nutrients come from wastewater treatment plants, septic systems, fertilizers, stormwater runoff, and development.
Already, one-third of assessed river miles in Montana are impaired by nutrient pollution. Rolling back protections now, when problems already exist and are likely to worsen, is reckless.
Montana’s $7.1 billion dollar outdoor recreation economy and the 71,000 jobs and businesses it supports depend on clean water and healthy rivers. Excessive, uncontrolled nutrient pollution entering our rivers and lakes puts the second largest sector of Montana’s economy and the health of the waterways that attract visitors from around the world at risk for polluting special interests.
Furthermore, all Montana communities and families rely upon clean drinking water. By removing the standards that determine whether a waterbody is polluted by nitrogen and phosphorus, the health of Montanans’ drinking water becomes uncertain. We can’t let the State of Montana prioritize industrial and corporate polluters over the health of Montana citizens and communities.
Narrative Standards Don’t Prevent Pollution
Montana’s replacement narrative standards are vague and have never been meaningfully implemented to protect or restore water quality. In fact, EPA previously found Montana’s narrative approach inadequate, yet despite anything changing, it has now approved the use of narrative standards for nutrient pollution.
Narrative standards:
- Are subjective and difficult to enforce
- Require visible harm before action is taken
- Create uncertainty for communities and permit holders
- Ignore the preventative, science-based approach required by law
Last month, nearly 1,000 Montanans petitioned the Department of Environmental Quality to pause pollution permitting because the current system lacks any transparent, effective way to prevent nutrient pollution and will exacerbate existing pollution issues our waterways are already facing.
Why We’re Taking Legal Action
Montana’s world-class waterways are the lifeblood of our state, supporting blue-ribbon fisheries, trophy wildlife, and agriculture. Eliminating proactive, science-based pollution controls represents a critical failure to protect local water quality in our streams, rivers, and lakes by and perpetuates algal blooms due to unhealthy levels of nutrient pollution, all of which directly harms our aquatic communities, wildlife populations, and western way of life.
EPA doesn’t have the discretion to rubber-stamp rollbacks that ignore science, disregard its legal duty to protect endangered species, and shift the burden and costs of pollution onto communities and waterways.
We’re going to court to stop this rollback, restore science-based standards, and protect the rivers that define Montana’s way of life.
Support This Work
Upper Missouri Waterkeeper isn’t government funded and we don’t accept corporate polluter money – its people like you that make this work protecting Montana’s rivers possible.
Please consider a donation today so we can continue taking on these important battles for Montana’s waterways, communities, fish and wildlife. Thank you for your support!