Temporary spike at Smithfield pork plant partially to blame

By John Hult, South Dakota Searchlight
April 7, 2024

Most mountain and plains states have seen reductions in pollutants released to the air, water and soil since 2013 at a rate of decline more than double the national average.

In South Dakota, though, toxic releases increased by 16%.

That’s according to recently published 2022 data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Toxics Release Inventory.

The trend is largely attributable to a temporary spike in nitrate emissions from the Smithfield Foods plant in Sioux Falls, which discharges treated wastewater into the Big Sioux River. Smithfield is owned by China-based WH Group, with U.S. operations headquartered in Smithfield, Virginia.

The Sioux Falls plant’s pollutant loads increased between 2020 and 2023 as it worked to complete an update to its on-site treatment plant, a project finished in mid-2023. The good news, according to East Dakota Water Development District Manager Jay Gilbertson, is that the next inventory release should show improvements reflective of that change at the pork processing facility.

“When the data comes in that will include the latter part of 2023, then there should be a big crash in that number,” Gilbertson said.

A stricter limit on nitrate releases after the Smithfield wastewater upgrade was a condition of the plant’s recently renewed surface water discharge permit. The permit was issued through the EPA’s National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System, administered inside South Dakota’s borders by the state’s Department of Agriculture and Natural Resources. 

Prior to the issuance of the plant’s new permit, there were no limits on its nitrate releases. 

“It is anticipated those upgrades will improve nitrate treatment and should result in diminished discharges of nitrate moving forward,” said Dana Munyon, a public affairs specialist at the department.

An overabundance of nitrates in rivers, lakes and streams can harm aquatic life, boosting algal growth and potentially leading to fish kills. High levels of nitrate in drinking water can affect blood oxygen levels and can lead to methemoglobinemia (also known as blue baby syndrome).

EPA data: Snapshot of industrial pollutants

Of all the South Dakota companies required to submit pollutant data through the Toxics Release Inventory, Smithfield is the largest producer and emitter of toxic materials. 

Other major sources include the Wharf Mine near Lead and Aurora-based Novita, a facility that uses byproducts from the nearby Valero ethanol plant to make animal feed and vegetable oil.

But the inventory isn’t an all-inclusive database of discharged pollutants. 

It tracks production-related chemical waste from certain industry operations in each state and U.S. territory. Companies are required to report their releases if they’re part of a covered industry, release chemicals on the inventory’s list of those with the potential to harm human health, and employ 10 or more people. 

That leaves several pollution sources unaccounted for, including municipal wastewater treatment plants like the one found in Sioux Falls. That plant also releases wastewater and nitrates into the Big Sioux River under the terms of its permit with the state, and at a higher overall volume than Smithfield.

“Smithfield kind of ends up taking the black eye on this one because they’re the reporter of the biggest load on a list of entities that is not all-inclusive,” said Gilbertson of East Dakota.

The inventory also does not set benchmarks for the amount of chemicals that can be safely released. Those levels and the enforcement of release limits are tied to separate programs under the EPA umbrella, including the surface water discharge permitting program.

The inventory, which launched in 1986, simply serves as a public data source. It lumps more than 800 chemicals together into a list and requires annual public disclosure of the amounts released for covered industries. Waste can be reported as treated, recycled, recaptured as energy, or disposed of in the air, water or soil.

“By making information about industrial management of toxic chemicals available to the public, TRI creates a strong incentive for companies to improve environmental performance,” the EPA’s Honor Morgan wrote in an email to South Dakota Searchlight.

South Dakota is not a high-level emitter of pollutants on a nationwide level, ranking 53rd of 56 states and territories in total chemicals released. There are 108 facilities required to report to the inventory in South Dakota, compared to 21,752 nationwide.

80% of tested surface water in South Dakota fails to meet state standards

Unlike South Dakota’s EPA reporting region, however, its trendline is moving up, not down.

The national decline in pollutant releases into the environment stood at 21%, according to the 2022 dataset. For EPA Region 8, which includes North and South Dakota, Wyoming, Colorado, Montana and Utah, the reduction was 47%.

South Dakota, with its 16% increase in releases, is an outlier in that group.

Gilbertson wasn’t surprised to hear it, though. The state has a long history of taking a “wait and see” approach to pollution management. 

“We like to wait until things go really bad and then do something about it,” Gilbertson said. “Because if you start trying to be preemptive, a lot of people who think their ox is going to get gored start to scream and yell.”

There is at least one bright spot in the inventory’s trendlines for South Dakota, though. In 2013, facilities reported recycling 1.19 million pounds of material. In 2022, that figure had grown to 2.8 million pounds, for an increase of 135%.

The total amount of chemicals released fell in Region 8 as a whole from 2013-2022, but its level of recycled chemicals fell by 75%. That figure is eclipsed, however, by a 545% increase in the amount of chemicals reused for fuel rather than released. 

In South Dakota, the amount of waste captured and reused was slightly less in 2022 than in 2013.

Smithfield upgrade

Smithfield’s position as South Dakota’s top polluter in the limited dataset may not change in the coming years, but overall releases should be far lower.

Pound for pound, Sioux Falls-based Smithfield released quadruple the waste of the next-nearest emitter in South Dakota, the Wharf Resources gold mine. The pork processing facility released 4.9 million pounds of chemicals total in 2022, nearly all nitrates. All but approximately 160,000 pounds of it was discharged into the Big Sioux River.

The plant’s $45 million “denitrification” upgrade started to impact release levels with its completion last summer. The new process reduces nitrates in wastewater, Smithfield spokesman Ray Atkinson told South Dakota Searchlight via email, which “has far less impact to aquatic life.”

“The new denitrification process has reduced Smithfield’s overall nitrogen load to the Big Sioux River by more than two-thirds,” Atkinson said.

Nitrates are a combination of nitrogen and oxygen.

For nitrates specifically, the release of which is now regulated in Smithfield’s state-issued EPA discharge permit, Atkinson said the new treatment process has allowed the company to hold nitrate releases at half its permitted limit.

The plant has also reduced total suspended solids in wastewater by 84% compared to April 2023, and ammonia discharges by 60%, Atkinson said.

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John Hult is the senior reporter for South Dakota Searchlight. He has more than 15 years of experience covering criminal justice, the environment and public affairs in South Dakota, including more than a decade at the Sioux Falls Argus Leader.

South Dakota Searchlight is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.

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