Government
Toxics release inventory growing more contentious David J. Hanson, C&EN Washington
The Environmental Protection Agency last month released industry estimates of emissions of more than 300 toxic chemicals into the environment. With total emissions volume down 11% in 1989 from 1988, the data do show some success in efforts to reduce emissions. At the same time, efforts are under way to expand both the uses of and the number of chemicals on the Toxic Releases Inventory (TRI). Publication of the TRI has become an occasion for the chemical industry to point out how well it is doing in reducing environmental contamination—and for environmental activists to bemoan how seriously the environment continues to be contaminated. For the 1989 inventory, any company that produced more than 25,000 lb or used more than 10,000 lb of a listed chemical had to file a report with EPA. Last year, 22,686 facilities filed TRI reports, a 15% increase from the year before. EPA says that companies filed more than 82,000 individual hazardous release reports. Overall, the agency estimates it is getting about a 66% compliance rate. That means there still may be 10,000 companies that are not filing the required information. As reported for 1989, the top five toxic chemicals released into the environment were ammonium sulfate solution, hydrochloric acid, methanol, ammonia, and toluene. Together these made up nearly 2.4 billion lb, one third of the total volume released. As would be expected, the states with the largest chemical and chemical products industries are those with the largest emission numbers. The top five for 1989 are Texas, Louisiana, Ohio, Tennessee, and Indiana. The Chemical Manufacturers Association reviewed the figures of its membership and reports that releases of the chemicals listed decreased 13% over the past year and 15% since the inventory began. According to Geraldine V. Cox, CMA's vice president and technical director, "We are confident that the policies and pro20
June 3, 1991 C&EN
grams that are now going into place will result in far greater reduction in the coming years." Cox notes that the decline in emissions comes during the same period as a rise in chemical production. "Production increased 3% in 1989 and 8.5% in the two years from 1987 to 1989." The implication is that pollution reduction was even greater when considered as a proportion of chemical production. Cox says some of the initiatives that will further reduce releases are the industry's Responsible Care program, which is still getting under way, and EPA Administrator William K. Reilly's Industrial Toxic Program. Reilly's initiative is known as the 33/50 project. The intent is to get about 11,000 facilities that report releases of 17 high-priority toxic chemicals to voluntarily reduce emissions 33% by 1992 and 50% by 1995. The 1988 TRI numbers are used as the baseline for the reductions. Combined, the chemicals account for about 23% of all reported TRI releases and transfers. EPA chose these chemicals because they pose a wide range of health and environmental risks and are released into the environment in large quantities. Reilly already has sent letters to more than 600 of the largest companies and has held nu-
Cox: far greater reductions in future
merous meetings with industry groups on the program. About 100 companies have already responded, with comments that EPA calls extremely positive. Two laws passed last year also are having an impact on the TRI. One is the Pollution Prevention Act, which requires eight new types of data to be reported on the TRI form beginning with data reported next year. Basically, reporting companies must keep careful track of their pollution prevention and recycling activities. It also requires companies to record amounts of a chemical released through catastrophic events, remedial actions, or other one-time events not associated with normal production. The second law is the 1990 amendments to the Clean Air Act. EPA says 1.8 billion lb of the 2.4 billion lb of air emissions reported in the TRI are addressed in the Clean Air Act as well. There are 189 air pollutants listed as hazardous in the act, and only 16 of those are not reported on the TRI. The agency says, however, that those chemicals may be added to the TRI list after some additional review. As regulations mandated by the Clean Air Act go into effect, emissions of most TRI chemicals are expected to drop. The TRI was required by provisions of the 1986 amendments to the Superfund law called the Emergency Planning & Community RightTo-Know Act. The original purpose of the inventory was to encourage local communities to develop response plans for chemical accidents, as well as to provide-both the public and government information about possible chemical hazards in the community. Currently more than 300 compounds must be reported. The inventory list is constantly being revised, and EPA tries to make adjustments to previous years for deleted chemicals when it publishes new data. Since the TRI's inception, eight chemicals have been deleted from the reporting list, but another 16 chemicals have been added. At least two compounds on the list, forms of sulfuric acid and phosphoric acid, still are waiting for possible
removal from the list. Chemicals qualify for listing if they have sig nificant adverse acute health effects at fairly low concentrations; if they are known to cause cancer, terato genic, or other serious irreversible health effects in humans; or if they cause significant environmental harm. The issue of what should be listed on the inventory was the subject of a report prepared by a coalition of en vironmental groups led by the Nat ural Resources Defense Council. Ti tled "The Right to Know More/' the report maintains that the public is only being informed of about 5% of the total volume of toxic chemicals being emitted into the environment and that the government should force companies of all kinds to mea sure and report every contaminant emitted. The changes the environmental organizations seek fall into two main categories. First, more chemi cals should be on the list. Over 500 chemicals that are not on the TRI list are already regulated as hazardous by some other environmental law, NRDC claims. The coalition cites ra dionuclides, coke oven emissions, dioxins, furans, DDT, and polycyclic organic matter as examples of haz ardous substances not on the TRI. NRDC lists more than 200 chemicals that the National Toxicology Pro gram and the International Agency for Research on Cancer identify as known or probable human carcino gens, 69 pesticides under special re view by EPA, and 90 reproductive health hazards listed by the Califor nia Department of Health that NRDC believes should be included on the TRI list. The second change sought by NRDC is more reporting categories. The present law requires only man ufacturers of large-volume chemi cals to report emissions. NRDC be lieves all emission sources of a chemical should report. Facilities that presently do not have to report data to the TRI include federal facil ities; agricultural operations; min ing, oil, and gas extraction opera tions; marine cargo loading; airports; power plants; industrial dry clean ers; drinking water and sewage treatment plants; petroleum and gasoline distributors; research labo-
Toxic releases and transfers have fallen in all categories Off-site transfers Publicowned treatment works Underground injection Land Water Air
Billions of lb Source: Environmental Protection Agen
