- The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) this week distributed
its Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) for 2002. TRI reports the release of
chemicals from refineries and chemical plants. According to the data, the
amount of chemicals released into the air was up 5% in 2002.
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- But a new report by two organizations that monitor enforcement
of pollution law charges that EPA and state governments are knowingly underreporting
toxic air emissions from refineries and chemical plants, to the tune of
330 million pounds per year. They assert that certain carcinogens -- benzene
and butadiene -- are in the air at levels 4 to 5 times higher than what
the EPA leads the public to believe.
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- The Environmental Integrity Project (EIP), a nonpartisan
organization that monitors enforcement of environmental laws, and the Galveston-Houston
Association for Smog Prevention (GHASP), show in their report, "Who's
Counting? The Systematic Underreporting of Toxic Air Emissions" that
because most air pollution is estimated instead of actually monitored,
the result is systematic underreporting.
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- "The 'guesswork' is being done by the polluters,
who have the incentives to keep the numbers as low as possible," said
Kelly Haragan, EIP counsel and equal justice fellow.
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- New rules adopted this year by EPA require polluters
to monitor emissions little more than once every five years. Previous standards
mandated that major air pollution sources monitor at a level sufficient
to show compliance with federal pollution limits. [1]
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- "Refineries and chemical plants report their toxic
emissions under an honor system that is based on calculations that are
outdated and inaccurate," Haragan said. "Instead of cleaning
up this problem, the EPA has further weakened monitoring rules and continues
to knowingly feed the public inaccurate data regarding toxic air emissions."
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- The EIP-GHASP report is based on findings by the Texas
Commission on Environmental Quality. It shows extreme jumps in carcinogens
released into the air. In one case -- a reported release of 6 million pounds
of benzene, a known carcinogen -- the 2001 TRI in fact totaled more than
20 million pounds. [2]
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- In 2001 the U.S. General Accounting Office asked that
EPA improve oversight reporting for large facilities, noting that 96 percent
of all emissions estimates were based on "emissions factors".
[3] Emissions factors were originally developed as a way to estimate long-term
average emissions, but are recognized by EPA as not being accurate for
calculating a particular facility's emissions. Nevertheless EPA has actively
limited the amount of direct monitoring that large sources of air pollution
are required to perform.
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- "We are tired of industry accounting tricks that
always seem to show pollution releases dropping rapidly, while air quality
improvements seem so slow. It is time for EPA and the states to require
real measurements from industry, and take forthright action to protect
the public from chemicals that cause cancer, respiratory, cardiovascular
and reproductive diseases," said John Wilson, director of GHASP. [4]
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- SOURCES: [1] EIP press release, Jun. 22, 2004. http://www.environmentalintegrity.org/pubs/TRI_news_release_FINAL.pdf
[2] "Who's Counting? The Systematic Underreporting of Toxic Air Emissions,"
EIP report, Jun. 22, 2004. http://www.environmentalintegrity.org/pubs/TRIFINALJune_22.pdf
[3] EIP report, op. cit. [4] EIP release, op. cit.
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- http://www.bushgreenwatch.org/mt_archives/000143.php
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