Toxic Pollution Rose 5 Percent in 2002

By JOHN HEILPRIN, Associated Press Writer , June 22, 2004

WASHINGTON - The volume of toxic pollutants released into the atmosphere in the United States rose 5 percent in 2002, the first increase since 1997, the government reported Tuesday.

Those two years are the only ones to show an increase since the Environmental Protection Agency began keeping track of the billions of pounds of pollution under a 1986 law. In 1997, the increase was half as much — 2.5 percent.

Even with the most recent rise — a dramatic turnaround from the 13 percent decline in 2001 — environmentalists say the EPA is still letting industry underreport the amount of air pollution by 330 million pounds a year.

"It's time that the EPA and the states deal with the problem of inaccurate and flawed reporting of toxic releases," said Kelly Haragan of the Rockefeller Family Fund's Environmental Integrity Project.

Some 4.79 billion pounds were released in 2002, the latest for which figures are available, not including releases from metal mining, the EPA reported. The agency stopped including that data because of a recent court decision in an industry challenge.

The EPA began releasing its annual Toxics Release Inventory piecemeal, earlier than planned, in response to criticism by Haragan's group and the Texas-based Galveston-Houston Association for Smog Prevention.

Kimberly Terese Nelson, the EPA's chief information officer, blamed the "extraordinarily large change" in the pollution trends on the shutdown of a BHP Copper Co. plant in Arizona. Dismantling a plant turns components and product into waste.

"If we were take that one facility out we would see a 3 percent decrease," she said of the releases of 650 chemicals by 24,379 facilities that EPA tracks. Last year, 25,388 facilities reported their findings.

The agency reported a 10 percent increase in releases of mercury — which Nelson blamed on a single gold mine — and a 3.2 percent increase in releases of lead.

It is the second year in a row that the EPA is requiring facilities to tell state and federal authorities about lead releases of more than 100 pounds. Previously, it required data only if more than 10,000 pounds were used or more than 25,000 pounds produced.

Dioxin, a chemical that is worrisome in even small amounts, decreased by 5 percent from the previous year.

The annual inventory is considered by EPA officials as one of the most important things the agency does, and is routinely criticized by some companies as too demanding and by some health and environmental groups as too lax.

The study Tuesday from the two advocacy groups cast it as particularly soft on refineries and chemical plants, keeping as much as 16 percent of the nation's air pollution "off the books."

Sen. Jim Jeffords, I-Vt., a senior member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said the pollution count shows the Bush administration is largely ignoring environmental protection.

"It's no wonder that polluters feel free to increase their toxic releases of mercury, lead and other hazardous substances," he said. "This just proves that the policies of the Bush administration have moved us backward, not forward, on the environment."

The biggest polluters in recent years have been hard-rock mining companies and coal-burning power plants, according to the EPA.

Last year, Nelson told Congress the EPA and the White House Office of Management and Budget wanted to make reporting easier, faster and less burdensome for companies. One of the changes being considered, she said, included a shorter reporting form listing only the types of chemical used.

The longer forms now required of many companies let the public know what types of chemical are used and the amounts, and whether they were recycled or released as waste into the air, water or land.

___

On the Net:

EPA Toxics Release Inventory: http://www.epa.gov/tri

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