Wow. This is disgusting.
Hypervocal, an on-line news aggregator, reports further on some key facts:
“The EPA, Texas Parks & Wildlife and Texas Environmental Crimes Task Force investigated the Columbia Packing Co. and found an underground drainage pipe, not linked to the city’s waste management system, discharging pig’s blood into the creek.”
That is potentially bad, awful, terrible news for the packing company. This discreet pipe is the definition of a point source under the federal Clean Water Act. Oh, and it is also a safe bet that PIG BLOOD is also a pollutant as defined by the Act:
“The term “pollutant” means dredged spoil, solid waste, incinerator residue, sewage, garbage, sewage sludge, munitions, chemical wastes, biological materials, radioactive materials, heat, wrecked or discarded equipment, rock, sand, cellar dirt and industrial, municipal, and agricultural waste discharged into water.”
Two very big strikes against the packing company. We’d probably need more facts in order to make a reliable determination that the packing company violated the CWA, but it looks pretty bad for them so far.
