Farm Animal Transparency (FAT)’s weekly Environmental Watch — a digest of environmental permits, litigation, and settlements involving companies in the meat, poultry, and seafood supply chains. Full details, classifications, and sources for every matter live on the Environmental Watch tracker.

Animal-waste air-emissions appeal: briefing complete, awaiting argument

In Rural Empowerment Association for Community Help v. EPA (D.C. Cir. No. 25-5354), the challenge to EPA’s rule exempting farms from EPCRA reporting of ammonia and hydrogen-sulfide releases from animal waste, the court’s August 3, 2026 final-brief deadline has now passed, closing out merits briefing. The docket shows appellants’ brief (April 8), EPA’s brief (June 8), the industry intervenors’ brief (June 22), and a Utah-led 25-state amicus for EPA (June 29), plus a medical-organizations amicus supporting the appellants. Oral argument has not yet been scheduled on the public docket, and the exemption remains in force while the appeal proceeds. Full tracker page →

Oklahoma poultry-litter settlement: special-master friction, still no vacatur

The July 10, 2026 settlement among Oklahoma and Tyson Foods, Cargill, George’s, Peterson Farms, Cal-Maine, and Simmons Foods — $41.671 million to an environmental relief fund plus $420,000 in penalties, with a seven-year step-down of litter application in the Illinois River Watershed — remains contingent on the courts. Press reports say the State and the companies have objected that an “inquisitorial” special master proposed by the district court is not a fit with the settlement’s own audit machinery, a sign Judge Frizzell is still weighing the agreement. Meanwhile the consolidated Tenth Circuit cross-appeals from the December 2025 judgment continue on schedule (a fourth cross-appeal brief is due September 4, 2026), and the State’s separate appeal of the April order rejecting the earlier partial settlements is docketed as No. 26-5065. No order vacating the December 2025 judgment or dismissing the case has been located; the settlement’s six-month vacatur window closes on or about January 10, 2027 — under five months away. Full tracker page →

Oakridge Dairy: no change

No developments located this week on the Somers, Connecticut digestate-storage permit approved in July. FAT is still watching for the final written permit and conditions, any appeal, and groundwater or well data. Full tracker page →

New matters this week

Puerto Rico slaughterhouse and executives criminally indicted under the Clean Water Act

On August 12, 2026, federal prosecutors announced the indictment of Ganaderos Borges, Inc., a slaughterhouse and meat-processing plant in Naguabo, Puerto Rico, along with its president, an operator, and two employees, on conspiracy and four Clean Water Act counts. The indictment alleges that from August 2018 through at least September 2025 the defendants used a concealed submersible pump to discharge untreated waste — animal blood, hair, tissue, feces, grease, and cleaning chemicals — from the plant’s retention lagoon into a creek running about half a mile to the Caribbean Sea, and made false statements to authorities. These are allegations only; all defendants are presumed innocent unless convicted. FAT classifies this as litigation pending.

Pacific Seafood faces a widening set of Clean Water Act citizen suits

Conservation groups have now filed three suits against Pacific Seafood entities: a January 2026 suit alleging at least 6,180 permit violations — chiefly chlorine discharges into the Columbia River — at the Pacific Bio Products fishmeal and rendering plant in Warrenton, Oregon; a follow-on Warrenton suit filed in June 2026; and, on August 4, 2026, a suit alleging the company’s industrial shellfish hatchery in Quilcene, Washington discharges overheated wastewater into Quilcene Bay and Hood Canal in excess of its NPDES permit. All claims are plaintiffs’ allegations; no court has adjudicated any violation. FAT classifies these as litigation pending. Full tracker page →

Ninth Circuit challenge to EPA’s withdrawal of slaughterhouse wastewater rules

Ten groups led by Waterkeeper Alliance are challenging EPA’s August 2025 withdrawal of the proposed update to effluent limitations guidelines for meat and poultry processing plants — standards that would have imposed first-time phosphorus and nitrogen limits at roughly 126 facilities. An industry coalition has intervened on EPA’s side. The 2004-era guidelines remain in effect while the case proceeds. FAT tracks this because the outcome determines whether plant-level nutrient-discharge limits and monitoring data for slaughterhouses ever materialize. Full tracker page →

Also on FAT’s watch list: Shenandoah Valley Organic (the “Farmer Focus” chicken brand) in Harrisonburg, Virginia, which regional sewer-authority records and June 2026 reporting show has received repeated notices of violation for exceeding pretreatment permit limits. The company says its wastewater receives further municipal treatment; that is the company’s position. Not yet a tracker matter.

Dates to watch

• September 4, 2026 — fourth cross-appeal brief due in the consolidated Tenth Circuit poultry-litter appeals.
• October 1, 2026 — extended deadline for attorney-fee motions in the Oklahoma district court.
• Fall 2026 — possible oral-argument scheduling in the D.C. Circuit animal-waste air-emissions appeal.
• On or about January 10, 2027 — the Oklahoma settlement’s six-month vacatur window closes; without a vacatur order, the settlement becomes unenforceable.

Notes for Dirk (remove before publishing)

All tracker updates are done — nothing to apply manually. The REACH and Oklahoma tracker pages (still drafts) were updated directly; new draft tracker pages were created for the Pacific Seafood suits (page 11614) and Waterkeeper v. EPA (page 11615), and both are linked from the Environmental Watch index table. Remaining decision: whether the Ganaderos Borges indictment also gets a tracker page or stays digest-only. Tracker-page links in this draft will resolve once the draft pages are published.

Farm Animal Transparency (FAT) — farmanimaltransparency.com — is a nonpartisan, nonprofit research project. FAT reports allegations as allegations and adjudicated findings as findings; see each tracker page for classification and sources. Sign up for research updates to receive this digest by email.

FAT keeps the most recent six months of weekly Environmental Watch reports published. Older reports are archived and available upon request — email dirkadams@farmanimaltransparency.com. See all tracked matters at the Environmental Watch index.