Clean Air News

New Jersey Would Lose Pollution Data from 90 Chemical Facilities

As the new home of NJPIRG's environmental work, Environment New Jersey can be contacted regarding this news release. 

TRENTON– A new NJPIRG analysis of a proposed Bush administration rule reveals that residents of New Jersey would lose valuable information about the amounts and type of harmful chemicals discharged by industrial facilities in their neighborhoods if the rule is finalized.

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Stephen Johnson proposed changes to the Toxics Release Inventory Program (TRI) in October 2005 that would significantly decrease the information that the public and state and local officials have about harmful chemicals released into New Jersey’s water, air, and land.

“On the anniversary of the deadliest chemical accident in history in Bhopal, India, Administrator Johnson wants to help corporate polluters hide toxic pollution,” stated Suzanne Leta, a NJPIRG advocate. “The Bush Administration’s proposal puts corporations first and communities last.”

"The Bush administration has been unabashed and relentless in rolling back the public's right to know," said DEP Commissioner Bradley Campbell. "Residents and communities surrounding 90 facilities in New Jersey will now be in the dark about toxic releases from those facilities."

In New Jersey, the local impact could be widespread. Analysis of the 2003 Toxics Release Inventory by Grassroots Connections and the National Environmental Trust showed that:

• 90 facilities in New Jersey would no longer be required to report toxic chemical releases to the public. For example, the Saint-Gobain Mickleton plant, which reported the release of 137,928 pounds of toxic chemicals into the environment in 2003 and is the 16th worst facility for releasing toxic chemicals in New Jersey, is one of many facilities that would no longer be required to report detailed information about the chemicals they discharge into New Jersey’s air, water, and land each year;

• New Jersey would lose one hundred percent of the reporting for arsenic compounds. This chemical is a suspected carcinogen, and one of the most hazardous chemicals for human health;

• Many communities in New Jersey would be severely affected. For example, people living in 27 zip codes would lose one hundred percent of the pollution information reported in their area.

In October 2005, EPA Administrator Johnson proposed to cut the amount of pollution information that companies are required to disclose. These changes to the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) would be three-fold:

• A rule to propose that companies be allowed to release 10 times as much pollution before they are required to report their releases;

• A rule that would allow companies to withhold information about some of the most dangerous chemicals, such as lead and mercury;

• A notification to Congress that Administrator Johnson intends to release a rule next fall to change the frequency of reporting to the program from every year to every other year.

“For workers, environmentalists and communities, TRI is a vital source of data that helps us track and prevent toxic releases—both inside and outside the plant,” said John Pajak, President of the New Jersey Work Environment Council and Recording Secretary of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local 877 at the Bayway oil refinery in Linden. “If Bush succeeds, we will loose a critical information source.”

The TRI program is a pollution disclosure program. Since 1987, companies have been required to report toxic releases to air, land, and water, as well as toxic waste that is treated, burned, recycled, or disposed of. Approximately 26,000 industrial facilities report information about any of the 650 chemicals in the program.

The TRI program was established in 1986, following a devastating chemical accident in Bhopal, India. December 4th marks the twenty-sixth anniversary of this accident, where thousands of people immediately lost their lives from exposure to chemicals, and tens of thousands have since died from continued contamination. Soon thereafter, Congress passed and President Reagan signed the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act, which established the Toxics Release Inventory.

The Toxics Release Inventory has been credited with a wide range of successes. Since the TRI program began, disposals or releases of the original 299 chemicals tracked have dropped nearly 60 percent. A U.S. PIRG Education Fund analysis showed that releases of chemicals linked to health effects have decreased as well. Between 1995 and 2000, releases to air and water of chemicals known to cause cancer declined by 41 percent.

EPA’s own research has shown that the public, companies, governments, academics, and investment groups have all used the TRI program. A May 2003 report by EPA highlighted twenty different state governments that use the TRI program for environmental targeting, risk assessments, regulations, legislation, quality assurance and control, and other uses.

New Jersey’s Department of Environmental Protection, for example, has used TRI data to prioritize facilities and geographic areas for implementing pollution prevention (P2) measures. TRI data also allowed the NJDEP to aggregate and map toxic chemical releases into waterways and group chemicals based on health and environmental effects in order to study the cumulative impact of toxic releases in communities.

“The TRI program has proved that requiring polluters to report their pollution creates an incentive for these facilities to reduce their pollution,” said Leta. “But the Bush administration wants to take this spotlight off polluters and leave the public and our communities in the dark about pollution in our state.”