Toxin Storage and Release Reports: Change of Requirements

Here's one that I think is a mistake.

Attorneys general in 12 states said Friday that the Bush administration's plan to ease rules on reporting legal toxin releases would compromise the public's right to know about possible health risks in their neighborhoods.

In a letter to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the state officials say the proposals, which include raising some reporting thresholds and moving from annual to biennial reports, would have the greatest harm in low-income neighborhoods where polluting facilities are often located.

The administration proposed the changes in September as a way to reduce the regulatory burden on companies by allowing some to use a short form when they report their pollution to the EPA's Toxics Release Inventory Program.

I'll agree that the reporting methodology required to day is in some cases quite unreasonable. Many of the sitting rules are applicable to both materials in encapsulated forms as well as true liquid forms that are more risky for accidental release.

"The public has a fundamental right to know what hazardous materials their children and families are being exposed to," said Wisconsin Attorney General Peggy Lautenschlager.

The proposed changes, which require congressional approval, would exempt companies from disclosing their toxic pollution if they claim to release fewer than 5,000

pounds of a specific chemical - the current limit is 500 pounds - or if they store it on-site but claim to release "zero" amounts of the worst pollutants.

The chemicals involved include mercury, DDT, PCBs and other chemicals that persist in the environment and work up the food chain. Companies must report any storage of dioxin or dioxin-like compounds, even if none are released.

The inventory program began under a 1986 community right-to-know law. If Congress agrees, the first year the changes could be possible would be 2008.

I've worked at a decommissioning site where there were large amounts of paints that contained PCBs. The paints were applied materials and not in liquid form. The problem was that the dried paint chips had to be stored and maintained in the exact same method as liquid PCBs are stored. There's a definite indication that some of these laws require change.

I don't see much use for reporting of stored materials at the present levels, but changing reporting on the releases is just a bad decision. The materials that are in discussion are very nasty products. Long environmental lifetimes and are very bad on life forms.

EPA officials say communities will still know about the types of toxic releases, but not some details about how each chemical was managed or released.

Yeah, that makes sense. If they are irresponsible on management and release, then the public shouldn't know. Please, tell me that these people have the citizen's interest in mind. Because it certainly doesn't appear that way to me.