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EPA ANNOUNCES YEAR 2000 TOXIC CHEMICAL RELEASE INVENTORY FOR ARIZONA

Release Date: 5/23/2002
Contact Information: Wendy L. Chavez, Press Office, 415/947-4248, [email protected]

     SAN FRANCISCO -- Industries in Arizona reported a 23 percent decrease in the amount of toxic chemicals released into the air, land and water in the year 2000, according to new data released today by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.  

     The data comes from the EPA's Toxic Release Inventory, an annual measure of toxic chemical release, transfers and waste generated by facilities in the United States.
     
     In Arizona, 252 facilities reported 745 million pounds of toxic chemical releases.   Total releases include toxic chemicals discharged to air, water, underground injection, land (including landfills), and the amount transferred off-site for disposal.

     For the first year, the TRI includes new data on emissions of dioxins and other "persistent, bioaccumulative, and toxic" chemicals.  Because  PBT chemicals which include mercury and PCBs are toxic, persist in the environment and bioaccumulate in food chains, the EPA lowered reporting threshholds.  Arizona facilities released a total of 14.256 grams of dioxins into air, land and water in 2000, ranking 41st nationwide.
 
     "The Toxic Release Inventory program is intended to inform people what type of chemicals are being manufactured, stored and released in their communities," said EPA Regional Administrator Wayne Nastri. "This year we're including chemicals such as dioxin and mercury to the list of pollutants that must be reported, giving us a much more accurate picture of chemical releases within the state."

     In Arizona, 38,351 pounds of on- and off-site releases of PBT chemicals were reported.  A significant portion of this total is comprised of land releases of mercury compounds from copper mining facilities.  

     Many mines extract, move, store, process, and dispose of large amounts of waste rock and ore  --materials that often contain low concentrations of naturally occurring metals.  The vast majority of this material is placed in surface impoundments or on the land, and the metals are reported as on-site releases to land.  There are also air releases from ore processing and metal refining operations.

     The 2000 data shows that Arizona industries have decreased toxic chemical releases 23 percent from 1999.   Air emissions of toxic chemicals went down by 11 percent to approximately 5.2 million pounds, but surface water discharges increased by 35 percent. Waste transferred off- site for disposal increased 55 percent to 2.8 million.

    Nationally, there has been a chemical emissions decrease of 48 percent in manufacturing industries about 1.55 billion pounds over the 13-year history of the program.

     Since 1987, manufacturing facilities have been reporting their releases of 650 toxic chemicals and chemical categories under this program.  This marks the third year that seven new industrial categories, including metal mining and electric utilities, were required to report.

     The reporting of data to the Toxics Release Inventory is required under the federal Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act, passed in 1986. This program has been credited with arming communities with valuable knowledge and encouraging facilities to reduce their releases of toxic chemicals into the environment through source reduction, or pollution prevention measures.

     Fact sheets and additional information on the 2000 TRI data for Arizona are available at http://www. epa.gov/region09/toxic/tri/report.  The following Web sites also provide useful information on TRI: https://www.epa.gov/triexplorer/ and     https://www.epa.gov/enviro