From paper mills to the military, 113 facilities in Maine would be allowed to release 10 times more toxic material into the environment without reporting the releases, under a Bush administration proposal.
That means the public would stop getting information about millions of pounds of poisons currently being released by the state’s industries.
The toxins include deadly arsenics, ammonia, chlorine and acids – substances that can cause a variety of illnesses ranging from skin irritation and diarrhea to cancers and respiratory disease.
Environmental Protection Agency administrators have argued that the proposed changes will reduce the pressure on businesses nationwide while still keeping to the goals of the Toxic Release Inventory program.
Environmentalists have criticized the proposal, saying the public deserves to know about the toxic substances released by businesses.
Anyone who wants to voice their opinion on the plan has until midnight tonight.
The Bush administration proposal involves about three dozen toxic substances. Currently, businesses must report the release of 500 pounds or more of the substances. Under the proposal, reporting would not be required unless more than 5,000 pounds of any of the substances were released.
“The purpose of these revisions is to reduce reporting burden associated with the TRI reporting requirements while continuing to provide valuable information to the public that fulfills the purposes of the TRI program,” states a summary of the rule change published by the EPA.
“‘Burden’ is the total time, effort or financial resources expended by persons to generate, maintain, retain, disclose or provide information to or for a federal agency,” the EPA adds.
“The agency will continue to provide valuable information to the public … regarding toxic chemical releases and other waste management activities.”
Calls placed to area businesses affected by the proposal seeking comment weren’t immediately returned.
Maine environmentalists are critical of the proposal.
“By raising the threshold, not only would data be lost to the public, but also some of the data (lost) would be on the most dangerous chemicals at small amounts – persistent bioaccumulative toxins like mercury and lead,” said Matthew Davis with Environment Maine, a Portland-based organization.
“We deserve to know what is being released in our own neighborhood,” he wrote in an e-mail exchange. “The existing reporting threshold of 500 pounds is plenty high; 500 pounds is a lot of chemicals to be putting into the environment.”
Moreover, he said the reporting change isn’t something that will benefit business in a financially meaningful way.
“The EPA itself estimates savings of under $1 million a year for the entire country if it implements these changes,” he said. “That is not a lot of savings for a 10-fold increase in the gross amount of undercover chemicals in our communities.”
In a letter to EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson, Davis said local groups use the EPA data to find out what facilities are dumping into the air and water.
“Maine officials have found these (reports) important and helpful” as well, he noted.
Davis told Johnson that if the threshold is raised to 5,000 pounds, 25 facilities that now have to report toxic releases will no longer have to submit any data. If that happens, he said 12 Maine cities and towns would no longer have numerical information on releases from industries and 21 other communities would lose some information.
One paper mill alone would no longer have to report on between five and 10 chemicals it now releases into the environment, he said.
The reporting laws apply to industries, manufacturing facilities, food preparation plants and others, including the Naval Air Station at Brunswick and the Air Force’s Air National Guard facilities in Bangor.
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