ENVIRONMENTAL NEWS Power plants' TRI reports spur relative risk debate The first Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) reports due this month from the electric power industry have reignited the debate over whether the raw numbers describing the releases are helpful, or confusing, to die public. EPA is not expected to release the tally of national emissions from utilities for at least 10 months, but many power companies are taking the lead, and several have put TRI numbers Oil their Web sites. Although the TRI data have many shortcomings, the program has been successful: In May, EPA Administrator Carol Browner estimated a 43% decline in toxic releases over the last decade. Since 1988, 20 industries, including chemical, paper, and food companies, have been required to report emissions only if tiiey exceed the TRI thresholds: 25,000 pounds for manufactured substances and 10,000 pounds for "otherwise use[d]" toxic substances. In 1997, electric utilities and six other industries were added to the list of facilities that must report Dounds of chemical releases to air water and land for listed substances This month, coal- and oilfired power plants are expected
Activists will use electric utility Toxics Release Inventory data to call for air regulations.
to report 10 to 30 TRI substances, and everyone expects the numbers, because they appear high, to surprise the public. Using EPA data, two environmental groups have estimated national emissions of hydrochloric acid at 146,000 pounds and hydrogen fluoride at 20,000 pounds. But an early peek at two-thirds of the national TRI emissions unveiled in June by the Edison Electric Institute (EEI) shows that the environmentalists' estimates were much too low (see box). EEI Washington
A partial view of power plant TRI emissions Coal- and oil-fired electric utilities have reported emissions of one or more of at least 23 chemicals and their compounds. Several utilities voluntarily reported their Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) emissions data early to the Edison Electric Institute; the numbers below represent about two-thirds of the estimated national releases for 1998. Estimated total releases for 1998 (lbs.)
Hydrochloric acid Hydrogen fluoride Sulfuric acid Barium Manganese Nickel
386,158,682 45,069,177 108,226,947 128,630,510 32,142,539 9,473,729
Source: Edison Electric institute, Washington, D.C.
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D.C., is a lobbying group for investor-owned electric utilities. "These numbers are breathless, literally," said Patricio Silva of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). Because electric facilities were required to install new acid rain controls under the 1990 Clean Air Act, Congress exempted mem from any regulation of hazardous air pollutants (HAPs) until EPA determined that regulation was necessary. Environmentalists plan to use the new TRI data from utilities to pressure EPA to regulate HAPs, said Felice Stadler policy director for the Clean Air Network. The utility data will causC a similar reaction to the first TRI reports released in 1988: Public pressure will mount, forcing die industry to reduce its releases, Stadler said. "The utilities are very eager to avoid a repeat of the fallout when the first TRI reports were in," she said. But utility spokespeople say they already are focusing on the relative risk of releases. "The public has a tendency to pay attention to—at the very least—and to be alarmed about—at the worst— data from TRI," said Alice Mayer, manager of environmental programs at EEI. © 1999 American Chemical Society
Citing a 1998 report to Congress on hazardous air pollutants released by utilities and another by the Electric Power Research Institute, utility officials say their emissions are at levels that do not pose a public health threat. On its Web site, Southern Co., the largest electricity producer in the United States, seeks to reassure customers that its utilities' releases pose no harm. Other utilities have included fliers in billing statements asserting that the company is in "full compliance with all local and federal emission standards" "The key is in trying to let the public know what the numbers mean," added Janni Benson, Southern Co. spokesperson. The trick in this approach is making a distinction between hazard and risk, which can be hard to communicate when interest groups use "hazard" without referring to an individual's risk, said George Gray, deputy director of the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis at the Harvard School of Public Health. Although a substance III 3.V be toxic the exposure to tin individual may not be enough to negative effect, said Gray. "The TRI ignores the sciences of toxicology and exposure assessment, which are essential when considering risk." In addition, the 43% drop in all emissions in some cases represented a drop in releases of toxic substances that are not as hazardous as others. Other companies may have replaced the TRI-listed chemical with one that lacked adequate toxicology mtormation, he aQQeo. Gray and the utilities are not the first to call for the TRI to include risk information. "Other [TRI] facilities have asked EPA to do this all along," said Mayer. In May, an independent advisory group sent Browner a report recommending steps to improve the TRI, including adding scientifically valid information on hazard, risk, and exposure. EPA staff insist that the 1998 study does not state that all utility TRI emissions pose no threat. They add that the law puts the job of interpreting the TRI in the hands of local communities, many of which have conducted
their own risk assessments. Asking the agency to centrally conduct risk assessments for all 630 TRI substances would be financially impossible, and the results would be too broad to be of use, the staffers added. One TRI substance that will not appear in next spring's reports is mercury, because most power plants' emissions are well below the TRI threshold. Based on new non-TRI data from utilities on mercury, the NRDC plans to develop reports pinpointing the mercury risk that a particular community has from the nearby power plants, Silva said. —CATHERINE M. COONEY
DID YOU KNOW? "Less than half of the 76 utilities operating nuclear power plants in the United States have accumulated suffi cient funds to close them." (Source: U.S. General Accounting Office)
Consensus on health risks from mercury exosure eludes federal agencies Two federal agencies, EPA and the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), are still at loggerheads over health advice regarding methylmercury. A special meeting convened by the White House Office of Science and Technology last November to try to resolve the conflicts between these and other federal agencies {ES&T 1998, 32(19), 444A-^445A) has resulted only in the acknowledgement that a range of recommendations is acceptable, according to individuals interviewed about the workshop's final report. The differences between the agencies' health recommendations are small. EPA currently recommends 0.1 microgram per kilogram of body weight per day (pg/kg/day); ATSDR recommends 0.3 pg/kg/day; and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's (FDA's) standard of 1 part per million in fish is roughly equivalent to 0.5 pg/kg/day. But the lack of harmony between the agencies' health advisories impacts several programs: state fish advisories, which affect consumption of noncommercial fish; commercial fish sales; and regulatory decisions about controlling mercury emissions from electric power plants Much of the conflict arises from two recent noncorroborating epidemiological studies of children living in the Seychelles
Islands and the Faeroe Islands. These studies were reviewed at the November meeting with a goal of achieving more harmonized federal health advice. However, the expert panels convened at the November workshop concluded that both studies are credible and well done, given the difficulty of teasing out such information, said George Lucier, director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences Environmental Toxicology Program and workshop co-chair. Despite this assurance, exposure levels that have no detrimental effects in the Seychelles produce detrimental effects in the Faeroes, Lucier said. The report will show that both might be correct since the studies used different developmental tests. The Faeroe Islands study, for example, used tests more sensitive to effects of mercury than the Seychelles study, he said. "The Seychelles study may underestimate risk, while the Faeroe Islands study may overestimate it," Lucier said. And different plausible assumptions used in risk calculations can result in the range of current recommendations, he added. The final workshop report was being prepared for publication as ES&Twent to press. In April, ATSDR revised its recommended safe level for methyl-
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