Employer groups in Washington state filed a lawsuit on Dec. 4 challenging the Environmental Protection Agency’s new water quality standards for the state, according to an Association of Washington Business press release.

“Regrettably, the EPA adopted standards that cannot be met with any existing or reasonably foreseeable future wastewater treatment technology, jeopardizing the operation of not only thousands of private businesses, but municipal wastewater treatment systems, too,” AWB President Kris Johnson says in the release.

Joining AWB in the lawsuit is Greater Spokane Incorporated; Olympia, Washington-based Northwest Pulp & Paper Association; Portland, Oregon-based Food Northwest; and the American Forest & Paper Association.

The lawsuit is a result of EPA’s December 2022 decision to override water quality standards that were adopted in 2016. The new standards are unattainable for wastewater discharge permittees, the groups contend.

On Nov. 14, 2022, EPA administrator Michael Regan signed a rule to restore the protective and science-based federal human health criteria for Washington state’s waters, according to the EPA’s website. The rule went into effect in December 2022.

“This action reinstates science-based federal human health criteria to protect Washington’s waters and help protect the health of Washingtonians and Tribal members who eat locally caught fish and shellfish,” an EPA Office of Water final rule document reads.

Johnson calls the rule “aspirational” in the AWB release, but says it threatens the economic wellbeing of Washington communities by imposing “disastrous compliance costs and failing to provide alternative methods to achieve regulatory compliance.”

Should the employer group’s challenge of the EPA rule succeed, the Washington state Department of Ecology’s 2016 water quality standards would be reinstated.

“The 2016 Ecology rule was very stringent and highly protective in its own right, while taking into account the policy considerations from Washington employers and municipalities,” Johnson says.

Alisha Benson, CEO of GSI, says in the release that Spokane businesses can’t come close to achieving the levels required by the EPA in its latest regulation.

“It’s telling that neither the state Department of Ecology nor the EPA has stepped forward to provide implementation tools to assist in these efforts,” Benson says. “The technology to meet these new water quality standards simply does not exist.”