One of the most important tools in the fight to reduce emissions of toxic agents into the environment has nothing to do with emission controls. It has to do with information. Since 1984 Americans have had access to information about how much individual companies were emitting into their neighborhoods via a publicly accessible database called the Toxic Release Inventory (TRI). The Bush Administration is again trying to weaken it, after unsuccessfully proposing new rules that would only require companies to report every two years rather than annually. Now they want to raise the threshold for reporting from 500 pounds of chemicals emitted to 5000 pounds, a ten fold increase:
U.S. EPA deputy press secretary Jessica Emond said in a statement yesterday that the federal agency's "proposed changes to TRI would create incentives for businesses nationwide to improve environmental performance and reduce the most toxic chemicals at their facilities."The proposed changes in TRI reporting would in no way affect the amount of chemicals facilities are allowed to release under federal, state, and local regulations," the statement said. (Toledo Blade)
So eliminating The Right to Know is going to create incentives to reduce emissions? These guys must think the American public is brain dead. Good for Tom Henry, staff writer at the Toledo Blade for bringing this to the attention of his readers. They not only have a Right to Know, it turns out the have a Need to Know:
Joe Koncelik, Ohio EPA director, was quoted in the report as supporting the Bush administration's proposed threshold change for persistent bioaccumulative toxins, such as mercury, lead, and dioxin.
TRI figures show that between 1998 and 2003 Ohio released more chemicals into the air from industry smokestacks and similar devices than any other state.
Ohio state government has been plagued by corruption and the voters turned the Republicans out of office. When Democrats take over in January maybe they'll get a state environmental protection chief who doesn't think it's OK to put more mercury, lead and dioxin into Ohio neighborhoods.
We can hope, anyway.
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Well, who has to clean it up and pay the health care when environmentally caused illnesses are rising in the long term? Would be nicer when the responsible government would be feeling the consequences themselves instead of some newcomers. The usual political plays.
I propose every car gets its pollutant emissions car outlet in the front instead of the back. Soon solves the climate problem. Ughe ughe...
There was a recent explosion at a small chemical company here in Massachusetts. The Danvers fire chief was all in a dither because he didnt know what chemicals were on-site so he had to recommend that the fire be left to burn itself out. He said the companys operations were too small for the federal and state EPAs to care about oversight (phooey - the environmental agencies probably had no authority over the business). Fire chief said the company had a good safety record (golly, no previous explosions!) but no one had trained him to know what to say about on-site chemicals when he did his inspections. Fire chief did a lot of whining that week. I havent heard about a firing, but he deserves it in spades, as perhaps does the rest of the town council.
My point - there are quite a few other ways for officials and the public to keep tabs on companies like that, and there are already laws that would have ensured the fire chief knew what flammable or combustible materials were on-site. Many Massachusetts towns also have emergency hazmat bylaws for that very reason. Danvers couldnt be bothered to protect its citizens. Amazingly, no one was killed that night, but dozens of homes and businesses were destroyed.
As for the TRI program, issues like terrorism have tended to remove from the public eye many of the finer details of chemical facilities but the information should still be available from your local emergency response folks. Except in Danvers, I guess.