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To: Wharf Rat who wrote (49672)	6/23/2004 9:43:52 AM
From: Wharf Rat	Respond to of 89467

Toxic emission figures disputed EPA says releases rose 5% in '02; groups argue numbers much higher By RANDY LEE LOFTIS / The Dallas Morning News Toxic releases from U.S. nonmining industries rose 5 percent from 2001 to 2002, the second-biggest jump in the 15 years since reporting began, the Environmental Protection Agency said Tuesday. But actual toxic releases might be far higher, according to a study issued the same day by environmental groups. Their study said the EPA's system grossly underestimates the amount of toxic chemicals reaching the nation's air, water and land. The federal government's annual report on toxic emissions, traditionally a powerful tool for monitoring industries' effect on the environment and public health, was due for release today. But EPA officials moved the release up by a day in response to the environmentalists' study. The EPA's figure of a 5 percent increase in reported toxic emissions comes after factoring out the mining industry, which releases huge amounts at a few facilities. The closure of a single copper smelter in Arizona and a court decision involving mine waste skewed the numbers for 2002 releases, said Kim Nelson, the EPA's chief information officer. Reported releases of lead increased in 2002, mostly because of a few facilities and a new reporting requirement, while dioxin releases went down, Ms. Nelson said. Although mercury was up overall, mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants, the focus of a battle between the Bush administration and environmentalists, were down slightly, she said. About 25,000 industrial facilities nationwide must report their annual emissions of more than 650 chemicals under the Toxic Release Inventory. Releases are reported in pounds, with no adjustment for the fact that tiny amounts of some chemicals are far more toxic than large amounts of others. 'Far-reaching effort' Despite its limitations, since reporting began in 1987, the Toxic Release Inventory has been credited with boosting public awareness and pressing industries to find less toxic alternatives. When adjusted to account for changes in reporting requirements over the years, reported releases have gone down each year except 1997 and 2002. "This is a very broad and far-reaching effort," Ms. Nelson said. However, a study by the nonprofit Environmental Integrity Project, based in Washington, D.C., and the Galveston-Houston Association for Smog Prevention found that the inventory failed to account for at least 330 million pounds of emissions per year. Among those off-the-books emissions are releases of some cancer-causing chemicals that are four to five times higher than the EPA figures indicate, the study said. Nationwide emissions of cancer-causing butadiene, for example, were 432 percent higher than the EPA said, the groups found. Other carcinogens were similarly underreported, they said. Texas 1st in releases Texas had the largest amount of unreported emissions, pushing the state from third place to first in total toxic releases, the groups said. The study was a nationwide extension of what was originally research by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality that found underreporting of emissions from refineries and chemical plants in the Houston area. The study's authors said the findings point out huge holes in people's right to know about toxic chemicals in their neighborhoods. "The public is being exposed to far more toxic air pollution than the EPA acknowledges for the record," said Kelly Haragan, a lawyer for the Environmental Integrity Project. "It is time that EPA and the states deal with the problem of inaccurate and flawed reporting of toxic releases." A big problem is an EPA policy that lets companies use estimates if they don't have actual monitoring to document their releases, the groups said. They said the estimation formulas are outmoded and inaccurate. EPA officials said they hadn't had time to read the environmentalists' report. But Ms. Nelson said the agency checks toxic-release reports against other information sources and looks for companies filing false reports. "We have no evidence that there are significant trends of underreporting," she said. dallasnews.com