EPA sued over public records request for nitrate research

The environmental group Food & Water Watch is suing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for failing to supply requested information about a nitrate assessment.

Food & Water Watch allege the “apparently scuttled” assessment would have provided EPA with the research necessary to update drinking water standards for nitrate and nitrite. 

The group alleges the current standards are “far too lax” to protect against the health threats — like an increased risk of certain cancers, thyroid disease and birth defects — that some research holds are linked to nitrate and nitrite exposure in drinking water at levels below the EPA standards. 

Per the complaint, Food & Water Watch submitted a request in August 2025 under the Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA, for information on the status of an EPA assessment of the human health impacts of the oral consumption of nitrate and nitrite. 

The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., alleges EPA has not made a determination in the request, released any documents or provided a timeline to commit to the request. 

The assessment plan for nitrate and nitrate was initiated in 2017 under EPA’s Integrated Risk Information System, or IRIS. The assessment was suspended in 2019, during the first Trump administration, then resumed in 2023 during the Biden administration. 

The webpage for the assessment has not been updated since a November 2023 docket entry. EPA announced in July 2025, however, that it was eliminating its Office of Research and Development, which housed IRIS. 

Food & Water Watch Senior Staff Attorney Tyler Lobdell said the FOIA request would “shed light” on whether or not the agency has “abandoned the assessment.” 

“The American people deserve an EPA that protects them from pervasive, dangerous pollutants like nitrate in their drinking water,” Lobdell said in a statement. “Instead, the Trump administration appears hell bent not only on throwing public health under the bus, but on doing it behind closed doors.” 

EPA did not respond to a request for comment on the petition or the status of the IRIS nitrate analysis. 

The FOIA request from Food & Water Watch asked for records pertaining to the status and plans of the analysis, documents about reconsidering maximum nitrate contamination levels, correspondence between EPA offices regarding nitrate or nitrite toxicity in drinking water and records detailing how the closure of the Office of Research and Development have affected or may affect nitrate drinking water work. 

The filing from Food & Water Watch shows the group had correspondence with EPA since the initial request and through early June. In April, the agency said it would have an interim release of records on May 8, 2026, according to the court filing. Food & Water Watch allege the agency has not produced the records nor produced a new timeline for interim releases. 

The group asks the court to find that EPA is in violation of the Freedom of Information Act and order EPA to release the requested, nonexempt information. 

Food & Water Watch was also one of more than 80 groups that wrote to EPA and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services urging the departments to “immediately identify and eliminate sources of nitrate pollution in drinking water.” The letter referenced a report from the Harkin Institute for Public Policy & Citizen Engagement and Iowa Environmental Council that linked environmental exposure to nitrate, among other contaminants, to Iowa’s rising cancer rates. 

Food & Water Watch has also sued EPA for removing segments of Iowa rivers with high nitrate concentrations from the state’s impaired water list.