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RTK.NET Mail 507912
Feb 16 11:28:07 1999
EPA PROPOSES RIGHT-TO-KNOW EXPANSION YOUR COMMENTS NEEDED--SAMPLE
BELOW
The U.S. EPA has proposed to improve our Right-to-Know through
stricter reporting requirements for persistent bioaccumulative
toxic chemicals like mercury and dioxin. Currently these substances
go largely unreported to the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) because
reporting thresholds are too high. Below are easy sample comments,
followed by background materials.
EPA must receive your written comments by March 8, or oral
statements at public meetings in Washington (2/16), Chicago (2/23),
or San Francisco (3/5) - see
http://www.epa.gov/fedrgstr/EPA-TRI/1999/January/Day-
26/tri1749.htm.
Mail comments to:
Docket Control Office (7407)
Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics (OPPT),
Environmental Protection Agency
401 M St. SW
Washington, DC 20460
Or e-mail comments to: oppt.ncic@epamail.epa.gov.
The Federal Register notice on this issue is available at
http://www.epa.gov/fedrgstr/, then click on January 5, 1999, and
find the section for EPA.
SUGGESTED COMMENTS:
Re: docket # 400132
Dear Administrator Browner,
Our organization [__________] has over [####] members concerned
about the impact of toxic chemicals on our health and environment.
We support your efforts to give communities more information about
some of the most dangerous substances known to science. Persistent
bioaccumulative toxins threaten public health and the environment
because these toxic materials remain in ecosystems for long periods
of time and build up in human or animal tissue. Several weaknesses
in your proposal for lowering the reporting thresholds under the
Toxics Release Inventory (TRI), however, would continue to allow
dangerous persistent bioaccumulative toxic chemical pollution to
remain unreported. We urge you to make the following changes as you
go forward with this Right-to-Know expansion:
1] Set tough criteria for persistence, bioaccumulation. For the
purpose of TRI reporting, any substance that is known to have a
"half-life" of two months or greater in the environment or a
bioaccumulation factor of 1000 or greater should be considered a
persistent bioaccumulative toxin.
2] Base reporting on persistence OR bioaccumulation. EPA should
require stricter reporting on any toxic substance that is either
highly persistent or highly bioaccumulative. Because persistence
and bioaccumulation potential act in different ways to increase the
adverse impacts of toxic chemicals, significant persistence or
bioaccumulation potential alone should be sufficient to trigger a
lowered reporting threshold for TRI. Several substances of concern,
including arsenic and nickel, are not included in the proposed
rulemaking because EPA has included only chemicals that meet the
criteria for persistence and bioaccumulation.
3] Set lower thresholds. EPA should lower reporting thresholds to
include all reporting of persistent or bioaccumulative toxins that
meet the above criteria. Of the options EPA has put forward in the
proposed rulemaking, we urge EPA to adopt the 1 and 10 pound
reporting thresholds.
4] Add missing chemicals. EPA should identify and include
additional chemicals that meet the criteria for persistence or
bioaccumulation. For example, lead--an extremely dangerous
substance, especially for children-- is not included in this
expansion.
5] Require reporting from all dioxin sources. EPA should require
reporting of all dioxin releases to the environment (numerous
groups are advocating that all dioxin sources report all their
dioxin releases, by dioxin compound). EPA's proposal sets reporting
requirements only for dioxin "manufactured on site." Significant
sources of dioxin pollution thus will go unreported to the public.
For example, dioxin is manufactured as an impurity in
pentachlorophenol manufacturing, but under the Agency's current
proposal, many facilities such as wood preservers and some organic
chemical manufacturers that process or otherwise use
pentachlorophenol would not report.
6] Abolish de minimis, Form A, and range reporting for these
chemicals. EPA should eliminate the de minimis exemption, Form A
and range reporting for all persistent or bioaccumulative chemicals
on the Right-to-Know list. Furthermore, EPA absolutely must retain
annual reporting for all TRI chemicals. Time-series reporting is
a fundamental attribute of TRI.
Sincerely,
Your name, organization and complete address.
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
On January 5, 1999, the U.S. EPA published a proposed rule in the
Federal Register to improve the federal Right-to-Know reporting
program to give the public more information about persistent
bioaccumulative toxins such as mercury and dioxin- substances that
are highly toxic in small quantities, persist in the environment,
and accumulate in the tissue of humans and animals. Even though
these substances are extremely dangerous in small quantities,
industries are not required to report the majority of the releases
and waste generated because the thresholds that trigger reporting
under the Right-to-Know law are set too high. Currently, an
industry must "manufacture or process" at least 25,000 pounds or
"otherwise use" at least 10,000 pounds of a given chemical to
trigger reporting to the EPA's Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) on
releases of any listed chemical.
Overall, EPA's proposal is a step in the right direction. This
Right-to-Know expansion will provide us with information on some
of the most dangerous substances-information communities have
needed for a long time. The expansion will increase significantly
the number of reports filed by industries. (Each TRI facility must
file one report for each chemical that is both on the list and
meets the reporting threshold.) EPA estimates that this rulemaking
will add 17,000 new reports from industries every year, increasing
the currently available information by 25 percent. That is a big
step forward, and we need to make sure the EPA does not weaken this
rulemaking because of industry pressure to decrease that
percentage.
There are a number of problems with the EPA's proposal, outlined
in more detail below:
Thresholds and Criteria for Persistence and Bioaccumulation The EPA
is proposing to lower reporting thresholds for certain persistent
and bioaccumulative toxins, but is using a system that may not be
strict enough. The EPA's proposal sets up a two- tiered system, and
lowers reporting thresholds for chemicals to either 10 pounds or
100 pounds, depending on the chemical. The tiers are set up based
on the persistence (measured in half-life?the amount of time it
takes for half of the quantity of a substance to be transformed
into another, hopefully less toxic, chemical) and bioaccumulation
or bioconcentration factors (ratios of chemical concentration in
an organism's tissue compared to the surrounding environment).
EPA's proposed two-tiered system: For chemicals with a persistence
value of 6 months or greater, and a bioaccumulation or
bioconcentration factor (BAF/BCF) of 5000 or greater, the reporting
threshold is lowered to 10 pounds. For a chemical with a
persistence value of 2 months and a BAF/BCF of 1000, the reporting
threshold is lowered to 100 pounds, which means less reporting. The
only exception to these pound limits is dioxin, where reporting
threshold is 0.1 grams.
There are a several problems with this proposal. First, the lowered
thresholds are still not low enough. Even a 10 pound threshold for
mercury would allow pollution from many large industrial boilers
(potentially several thousand facilities) in the country to go
unreported. Although we estimate that a 10 pound threshold will
trigger reporting for most power plants in the U.S. (the largest
single source of mercury pollution), industrial boilers are also
a significant source of mercury pollution when considered together.
In addition, even a 0.1 gram threshold for dioxin will miss
significant dioxin sources. Communities for a Better Environment
(CBE in San Francisco) estimates that more than 4000 industrial
sources of dioxin would still be exempt from reporting under a 0.1
gram threshold. (Also, see the "Dioxin Issues" section below).
Second, there is no real reason for this two-tiered system.
Although the EPA argues that there should be somewhat less
stringent reporting requirements for a chemical of slightly less
concern, (i.e., a lower BAF/BCF and a lower persistence value),
these chemicals are all dangerous. Industries that manufacture,
process, or otherwise use any quantity of substances that persist
in the environment (half-life of 2 months or greater) or
bioaccumulate (BAF/BCF of 1000 or greater) should report their
releases to TRI. Additionally, a single-tiered system is likely to
be less confusing for those reporting to TRI. You might wish to
comment that a single-tiered system for persistent bioaccumulative
toxins is preferable.
While EPA's proposal specifically puts forward a 10 pound/100 pound
system, the Agency requests comments on three other options as
well, only one of which is any better than the 10/100 option. The
best option the EPA is considering is a one and ten pound option,
using the same criteria for persistence and bioaccumulation as the
10/100 proposal. If EPA were to choose the one and ten pound option
in the final rulemaking, this would provide the public with twice
as much information as the 10/100 pound option (EPA estimates that
the one and ten pound option would result in nearly two times the
number of facilities reporting and the number of reports filed
under the 10/100 pound option).
Missing Chemicals
EPA's proposal lowers reporting thresholds for 19
chemicals/chemical categories. The Agency's proposal fails to
include a number of persistent bioaccumulative chemicals that meet
the criteria the EPA has laid out-they just left them out (probably
because there was not time to do all the analyses required and
still get this rule finalized by the end of 1999, so reporting will
begin in the Year 2000). Examples of these chemicals include lead,
cadmium, endrin and dieldrin.
Finally, because EPA's proposal requires that chemicals be both
persistent and bioaccumulative, a number of chemicals that are
either persistent or bioaccumulative, but not both, fall off the
list. Because persistence and bioaccumulation potential act in
different ways to increase the adverse impacts of toxic chemicals,
either factor should be sufficient to trigger a lowered reporting
threshold for TRI. Numerous chemicals are missed if high
persistence, low bioaccumulation chemicals are excluded from the
stricter reporting requirements. These chemicals include, arsenic,
chromium, nickel, ethylene oxide, methylene chloride, and some
brominated biphenyls (PBBs).
Dioxin Issues
EPA's proposal adds dioxin to the Toxics Release Inventory and
lowers the reporting threshold to 0.1 gram, which is too high from
a toxicity standpoint and does not specify that each dioxin
compound will be individually reported. Additionally, the Agency's
proposal sets reporting requirements only for dioxin "manufactured
on site." Significant sources of dioxin pollution thus will go
unreported to the public. For example, dioxin is manufactured as
an impurity in pentachlorophenol. Facilities that manufacture
pentachlorophenol thus would report dioxin to TRI, however,
facilities such as wood preservers and some organic chemical
manufacturers that process or otherwise use pentachlorophenol would
not report. EPA's own report on dioxin lists pentachlorophenol use
as a significant sources of dioxin in the environment. It is
unlikely that the Agency would capture the substantial majority of
dioxin emissions without these important sources.
The comments above were developed by:
[o] Allison LaPlante; US PIRG (laplante@pirg.org)
[o] Tom Natan; National Environmental Trust
(tnatan@envirotrust.com)
[o] Paul Orum; Working Group on Community Right-to-Know
(orum@rtk.net)
[o] Lois Epstein; Environmental Defense Fund (temporarily away).
For information on EPA's overall PBT strategy, feel free to contact
Guy Williams of the National Wildlife Federation (Ann Arbor, Mich.)
at (WILLIAMSG@nwf.org).
Paul Orum
Working Group on Community Right-to-Know
218 D Street, SE; Washington, DC 20003
Ph: (202) 544-9586; E-mail: orum@rtk.net
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