EPA Proposes Sweeping Reductions in TRI Pollution Reporting

[Guest guest]

Please forward this to as many people as possible in the USA! The

U.S. EPA plans to gut the annual TRI toxics environmental reporting by

allowing only reporting every other year.

 

Neil Carman, Ph.D.

Environmental scientist

 

 

RTK Network

<newsletter

Neil Carman <neil_carman

Special Edition: EPA Proposes Sweeping Reductions in TRI

Pollution Reporting

Thu, 6 Oct 2005 19:03:02 -0400

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Community

Right-to-Know eUpdate Special Edition: EPA Proposed Sweeping

Reductions to TRI Pollution Reporting

October, 2005

 

Editor's Note:

Our regular Right-to-Know eUpdate in its

usual format will be coming out next week. We are

sending out this special edition due to EPA's recently announced

proposal to fundamentally change the Toxics Release Inventory,

and the dire consequences this change will have on the public's

right-to-know.

 

 

EPA Proposes Sweeping

Reductions in TRI Pollution Reporting

 

 

 

EPA recently announced plans to virtually

dismantle the Toxic Release Inventory (TRI), the nation's premier

tool for tracking toxic pollution. The TRI makes companies

report on the toxic chemicals they release into the air, land, and

water. This information enables average citizens and government

regulators to press companies to reduce their pollution, resulting in

healthier communities.

 

 

 

EPA has proposed to cut the TRI

program in half by letting industries report their pollution every

other year instead of annually; allow thousands of facilities to

withhold details about pollution volumes and treatment; and reduce

information collected on persistent bioacculuative toxins (PBTs),

which are some of the most toxic industrial byproducts that persist in

the environment, and build up in the body.

 

 

 

In response to hurricane Katrina,

government officials used the TRI to identify facilities that store or

release large quantities of toxic chemicals. The government

should be expanding information available to citizens and first

responders, not reducing it, especially since this information has

proved useful in emergencies like Katrina.

 

 

 

EPA justifies the changes by claiming a

projected $2 million a year savings on the proposed off-years of

reporting, and the need to reduce reporting companies' paper work.

However the public's right to know should not be auctioned off for any

dollar amount. In addition, EPA's charge of protecting public

health should not be trumped by its ambitions to reduce companies'

paperwork costs.

 

 

 

EPA is required to consider public

comments before making these changes, so your input can make a

difference.

Click here to send an official comment to

EPA.

Click here to read the proposed rule in the Federal

Register.

Click here for a fact sheet on the Toxics Release

Inventory.

 

 

 

 

 

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