Toxic Release Inventory

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In 1986 the U.S. Congress passed a federal law called the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (EPCRA), which gives the public the right to know about industrial toxic chemicals that are released into the environment. At present this law, which is also known as Title III of the Superfund Amendment and Reauthorization Act, requires businesses in certain industries that manufacture, process, or otherwise use any chemical from a list of 651 designated chemicals or chemical groups in amounts greater than a certain threshold to report annually to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on their releases of these chemicals. The EPA maintains this information in a database called the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI), which is available to the public over the Internet.

TRI Reporting Requirements

A plant, factory, or other facility must report chemical releases if it has ten or more full-time employees and manufactures, processes, or imports any of the listed chemicals in amounts greater than 25,000 pounds per year—or 10,000 pounds per year if any of the listed chemicals are otherwise used but not incorporated into a final product. The TRI classifies the chemicals according to their chemical and physical characteristics and contains information on release location. The TRI reports amounts that are released each year to the air, water, and land, as well as information on chemicals sent to waste-management facilities. Air emissions are separated into passive emissions

Chemical	Air	Water	Underground Injection	Land	Total On- and Off-Site
SOURCE : U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Copper compounds	1,656,106	426,419	1,737,251	1,346,061,845	1,367,338,006
Zinc compounds	7,513,386	1,276,151	22,580,44	828,086,567	1,037,602,367
Hydrochloric acid	645,632,582	96,763	54,125	15,549	647,112,538
Manganese compounds	2,214,810	5,696,403	10,829,146	4,048,797,705	479,942,409
Arsenic compounds	240,956	166,482	1,809,735	469,413,711	476,640,941
Lead compounds	1,225,794	80,510	8,512,731	328,875,879	357,844,917
Nitrate compounds	336,731	232,960,319	57,203,694	13,041,063	317,119,741
Barium compounds	2,850,794	1,749,324	2,099,443	243,702,122	299,780,394
Methanol	183,176,226	3,753,931	18,353,232	1,828,212	208,566,348
Ammonia	139,047,851	7,560,654	27,335,270	5,772,773	184,124,675

Industry	Total On- and Off-Site Releases, 2000, in Pounds	Change 1998–2000, in Pounds and Percentage
SOURCE : U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Manufacturing Industries	2,267,118,555	–154,218,664;	–6.4
Metal Mining	3,310,956,485	–252,183,558;	–7.1
Coal Mining	15,327,860	19,334,956;	14.4
Electric Utilities	1,120,615,348	–9,834,598;	–0.9
Chemical Wholesale Distributors	1,611,790	91,350;	6.0
Petroleum Terminals/Bulk Storage	3,725,152	–786,620;	–17.4
Hazardous Waste/Solvent Recovery	7,001,138,027	–409,262,569;	–5.5

from storage or production and "stack" or point emissions. Releases to water include the name of the receiving water body.

Businesses required to report to TRI have expanded from the original manufacturing facilities and now include manufacturing, metal mining, coal mining, electric utilities that combust coal and/or oil, chemical wholesale distributors, petroleum terminals, bulk-storage facilities, hazardous-waste treatment and disposal facilities, solvent-recovery services, and federal facilities.

PBT Emissions

Persistent bioaccumulative toxic (PBT) chemicals are a class of compounds that persist and bioaccumulate in the environment. They have the potential to result in greater exposure to humans and the environment over a longer period of time, making even smaller quantities of these chemicals of concern. In 2000 the TRI was expanded to include new PBT chemicals, and the reporting threshold was lowered for both the newly added chemicals and certain PBT chemicals already on the TRI list. The reporting criteria for most PBT chemicals was lowered to a threshold of one hundred pounds if manufactured, used, or processed. A threshold of ten pounds was established for another subset of PBT chemicals that are highly persistent and highly bioaccumulative, including mercury compounds, pesticides such as chlordane,

Companies with Largest Discharges	Surface Water Discharges, in Pounds, 2000	Principal Chemical Releases
SOURCE: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
AK Steel Corp., PA	28,048,653	Nitrate Compounds
BASF Corp., TX	21,515,040	Nitrate Compounds
AK Steel, IN	12,211,850	Nitrate Compounds
Vicksburg Chemical Co., MS	7,966,805	Nitrate Compounds
IBP Inc., NE	6,700,250	Nitrate Compounds
Smithfield Packing Co., NC	5,129,795	Nitrate Compounds

Companies with Largest Emissions	Total Air Emissions, in Pounds, 2000	Principal Chemical Releases
SOURCE: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Magnesium Corp. of America, UT	43,932,001	Chlorine, Hydrochloric Acid
CP&L Roxboro Steam Electric Plant, NC	19,247,325	Hydrochloric Acid
Reliant Energies Inc., Keystone Power Plant, PA	18,460,972	Hydrochloric Acid, Sulfuric Acid
Bowen Steam Electric Plant, GA	17,807,778	Sulfuric Acid, Hydrogen Fluoride
Lenzing Fibers Corp., TN	17,345,982	Carbon Disulfide
Gulf Power Co. Crist Plant, FL	16,621,882	Hydrochloric Acid, Sulfuric Acid

Companies with Largest Releases	Total Releases to Land, in Pounds, 2000	Principal Chemical Releases
SOURCE: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Kennecott Utah Copper Mine, UT	813,758,255	Copper, Zinc, Antimony
Red Dog OPS Mine Facility, AK	445,322,528	Cadmium, Lead
Barrick Goldstrike Mines Inc., NV	346,539,178	Arsenic, Manganese, Zinc
Newmont Mining Corp., Twin Creeks Mine, NV	219,922,901	Arsenic, Antimony
ASARCO Inc. Ray Complex Mine, AZ	155,098,189	Copper
Newmont Mining Corp., Carlin, NV	154,157,564	Arsenic, Zinc, Antimony

heptachlor, methoxychlor, and toxaphene, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), and polycyclic aromatic compounds (PACs). Since dioxins are highly persistent but are produced in extremely small amounts, the threshold for dioxin and dioxin-like compounds was set at 0.1 grams, with the provision that reporting include dioxin and dioxin-like compounds that are present as contaminants in a chemical or that are created during the manufacture of another chemical.

Reporting Trends

From 1998 to 2000, total TRI releases by all industries fell by 409.3 million pounds, or more than 5 percent. The largest decrease from 1999 to 2000 occurred in the metal mining industry.

SEE ALSO C OMPREHENSIVE E NVIRONMENTAL R ESPONSE , C OMPENSATION, AND L IABILITY A CT (CERCLA) ; H AZARDOUS W ASTE ; R ESOURCE C ONSERVATION AND R ECOVERY A CT .

Internet Resource

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. "Toxics Release Inventory Program." Available from http://www.epa.gov/tri .

Joan Rothlein