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Three state legislators are telling the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that changes it’s considering in the way polluters report emissions are a bad idea. If enacted, the regulatory proposals would reduce the amount of pollution information available to people living near facilities releasing toxic chemicals.
“The EPA is proposing a number of changes about how, when and what manufacturers and other facilities must report to the EPA for inclusion in the Toxic Release Inventory,” said Rep. Bob Valihura, R-Delaware North. Valihura joined with Rep. Greg Lavelle, R-Sharpley, and Sen. Cathy Cloutier, R-Heatherbrooke, in authoring a letter to the EPA opposing the changes. All three legislators represent districts in or near industrialized sections of northern New Castle County.
Established under the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act of 1986, and expanded by the Pollution Prevention Act of 1990, the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) provides the public with information on toxic chemical releases by a host of businesses and industrial facilities. This database is updated via annual reporting, giving regulators, environmentalists and business officials a clear idea of pollution trends and tracks for dozens of toxic compounds being discharged into the air, water and ground.
Among the changes being proposed by the EPA are lengthening the reporting interval from one year to two and raising the thresholds for reporting detailed data. The EPA claims the proposals are aimed at increasing agency efficiency, while reducing the burden on relatively minor polluters.
“When you say it fast it doesn’t sound like a big deal, but it is,” Lavelle said. “The Toxic Release Inventory is a valuable tool that helps private citizens identify and gauge potential threats to their homes and families. This open access to current, detailed information has enabled local residents, industrial leaders and government officials to openly discuss concerns and address problems.” He said that one of the impacts of lengthening the reporting interval from one year to two would be that it would take longer to identify anomalies, spot troublesome trends and take corrective action. “Biannual reporting will needlessly slow down the process of monitoring and reducing pollution,” he said.
Altering the reporting intervals will also reduce accuracy, the legislators say. While it might be surmised that averaging the data from two biannual reports would provide a good estimate of the intervening nonreported year, a recent study by the National Environmental Trust (NET) found this assumption to be false. The NET used 2001 and 2003 TRI data to calculate estimates for 2002. Staffers then compared these estimates to the actual 2002 TRI. In Delaware, the report showed that 50 percent of the state’s reporting facilities had actual releases that were more than 50 percent off the calculated estimates. Nationally, 51 percent of TRI-reporting facilities had releases more than 50 percent above or below estimates.
“We’re not voices in the wilderness on this,” Cloutier said. “The Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control has already written a detailed letter containing nearly two dozen points undercutting the EPA’s proposals.”
Among the objections listed in the letter by DNREC’s Division of Air & Waste Management was criticism of a proposal to raise the threshold at which polluters would have to report detailed data on specific emissions. It stated that 100 percent of the numerical data in Delaware would be lost for 25 chemicals, including formaldehyde, the cleaning solvent tetrachloroethylene (PCE) and the gasoline additive MTBE.
Both PCE and MTBE have contaminated ground water at locations from Elsemere to Rehoboth Beach, resulting in millions of dollars of remedial action.
Additionally, the letter stated, “Twenty-one percent of the Delaware TRI facilities would no longer be required to report any numerical data to the program, and thus the communities in which these facilities operate would not receive any data from these facilities regarding their use of toxic chemicals.”
The Division of Air & Waste Management also noted that if the EPA’s suggestions are implemented, comparisons between the new TRI data with those of years past would be extremely confusing since the next generation of reports would include a different mix of tracked facilities and lack data from scores of releases that had been reported earlier.
In writing to the EPA, Valihura, Lavelle and Cloutier said, “The proposed changes to the TRI would have a detrimental impact on both the quality and quantity of data available to the public and state regulators about toxic agents released in and near their communities.
“While apparently well intentioned, we believe the proposed changes represent a retreat from the EPA’s core environmental protection mission.”
For more information on the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) Program, visit the EPA website at: http://www.epa.gov/tri/.
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