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N.J. Blasts Changes in Emissions Reporting ; Many Small Companies Wouldn't Have to File

Posted on: Tuesday, 27 December 2005, 15:00 CST

By ALEX NUSSBAUM, STAFF WRITER

More than 100 companies in 30 New Jersey towns would no longer have to report the amounts of hazardous chemicals they pump into the air or water under new environmental rules proposed by the Bush administration, the state is warning.

Many of New Jersey's largest polluters would still have to make their toxic emissions public, but critics say the small companies - the ones tucked near homes and offices around the region - would all but disappear from a popular federal database, leaving neighbors in the dark.

State regulators say neighborhoods in Carlstadt, Clifton, East Rutherford, Hackensack, Paterson, Ridgefield, Ridgefield Park and Wallington would lose all numerical data about the chemicals used in their midst, the state said.

The proposal to remodel the 20-year-old Toxic Release Inventory is drawing fire from citizen watchdogs, environmentalists, firefighters and state officials, who say the changes would also kill the incentive for industry to cut back on pollution.

"These are dangerous chemicals, cancer-causing chemicals and our only defense is to monitor," said Laura Coll, who used the inventory to track PCB pollution from her neighbor in Elmwood Park, Marcal Paper Mills Inc.

The Environmental Protection Agency, which oversees the inventory, says the worries are misplaced. The changes, it says, would affect small companies that release few chemicals but need relief from the piles of paperwork that come with tracking emissions.

"It's kind of similar to paying taxes: People would rather use the 1040EZ form if they can rather than fill out 10, 15 pages," said Suzanne Ackerman, an agency spokeswoman. "We're trying to say, is there some way we could still collect almost all the same data but do it in half the time?"

Nearly 24,000 companies file annual reports with the inventory about their use, release or shipments of 650 hazardous chemicals such as asbestos, lead, arsenic and dioxin. The reports are made public on an EPA Web site, TRI Explorer.

Congress created the program in 1986, two years after a leak at a pesticide plant in Bhopal, India, left thousands of people dead and injured perhaps 200,000.

After initial complaints, industry made its peace with the obligations. But in the 1990s, the Clinton administration expanded the program, adding new chemicals and extending it to cover power generators and the mining industry.

Now, in the name of "burden reduction" for businesses, the EPA wants to rein in some requirements. In September, the agency proposed raising the reporting threshold for many chemicals from 500 pounds to 5,000. For the most worrisome materials - chemicals such as mercury and lead that can last for years and accumulate up the food chain - thresholds would rise from 10 or 100 pounds to 500. Companies that fall under the new limits would still have to reveal which chemicals they use, but not how much.

The agency is also considering whether to let businesses file every other year, instead of annually.

The changes would provide relief to about a third of those that file toxic inventories, saving American business about 165,000 hours of work yearly, the EPA said. Ackerman, the spokeswoman, could not say how much the private sector might save, but the EPA estimates businesses spend $650 million a year overall to comply.

"We're in the 20th year of the TRI program, and it is a huge amount of information to collect," Ackerman said. "Obviously, this is a lot of work for us and for the facilities reporting. Most of them do complain."

The savings would keep little from the public, Ackerman added. Ninety-nine percent of chemical releases would still be reported in detail because most are well above the 5,000-pound limit, the agency predicts.

"There are a lot of small emitters," said Hal Bozarth, executive director of the Chemistry Council of New Jersey, which represents 2,300 chemical companies. Gathering the numbers "is a substantial cost burden. Clearly, a lot of people have to spend a lot of time calculating the emissions and actually reporting them."

'A step backwards'

State regulators, however, called the proposal "a step backwards for pollution prevention."

In an analysis of the EPA plan, the state Department of Environmental Protection said a fifth of the 500 sites that filed toxic inventories in 2003, the latest year available, would have filed no numerical information under the new proposal. Numerical data would have been lost in 30 New Jersey municipalities, said the DEP, which did not name the plants affected.

Earlier this month, the environmental group National Environmental Trust issued its own study. It found 922 communities, one in 10 of the nation's ZIP codes, would lose all numerical TRI data under the proposal; in 1,600 other ZIP codes, reportable amounts would be cut in half.

Those who've used the inventory say they care less about what the largest emitters are doing than what's happening in their back yards.

In Elmwood Park, the proposal would have let Marcal avoid specifics of the 12 pounds of PCBs the mill sent up its smokestacks in 2003. The state fined the company after it admitted to releasing twice the allowable level of the chemical, which has been linked to cancer and liver damage. Despite the penalties, environmental officials said the releases posed no health threat.

Coll, who lives a few blocks away, said the inventory was essential in helping her understand the mill's impact. If anything, the program needs improving, she argued: The latest data online is two years old.

In Fair Lawn, Wendy Dabney used the inventory to investigate three factories she blamed for the ominous clouds and formaldehyde stench that wafted through her neighborhood in the early 1990s.

She found an alphabet soup of chemicals at the plants, a dye maker, a textile finisher and a perfume company. The list included 1,2,4-trimethylbenzene, an ingredient in dyes that can harm the nervous system, nose and throat when breathed at high levels. The factories were fined $200,000 for their pollution.

"If the stuff hasn't become less toxic, what is the point [of reporting less]?" Dabney asked. "We have all these problems going on and we're going to have less information to base public advocacy on."

Under the threshold

Critics say the EPA would undercut the pressure the program puts on companies to reduce toxic chemicals. Since reporting started, chemical releases have dropped nearly 60 percent, they note.

"Once you raise the thresholds, you invite those same companies or new companies to increase their emissions as long as they're under the threshold," said DEP Commissioner Bradley Campbell. "It's not just a matter of what current emissions would still be reported but also a matter of how many additional emissions you're inviting."

The inventory helps regulators flag problems, Campbell added. In 2002, the state demanded answers from a Newark factory after reports of high emissions of hydrazine, a hazardous air pollutant. "Ultimately, we shut down that facility because of the trail that was established by TRI," Campbell said.

Firefighters also oppose the changes, said Bill Lavin, president of the state chapter of the New Jersey Fireman's Mutual Benevolent Association.

The group's 55,000 members use the inventory to prepare for accidents or fires at chemical plants, refineries and other sites. They need more information, not less, Lavin said, even if only small "mom and pop" companies would be affected.

"It is the mom and pop operation that concerns us the most," the Elizabeth fireman said. "The Schering-Ploughs and the Mercks and the Pfizers have the wherewithal. We know they are going to regulate themselves. It's exactly the mom and pop guy we're concerned about because they're the ones that create the most danger for us."

Not a burden

North Jersey businesses contacted by The Record said they welcomed relief from federal paperwork. But none would call the inventory a major burden.

"This is not one of those filings that you really hate to do," said Bob Lohan, a vice-president at Pan Technology, which makes pigments, inks and coatings at its Carlstadt plant. "After you're doing it for all these years, you sort of accumulate [information] as you go along and you know what you're going to need."

Marcal's environmental affairs director, Bill Reilley, said the mill's emissions are so low that it probably won't file a report this year, even under current rules. Last year, the plant shut down the recycling process that produced the PCB emissions.

The TRI has pushed Marcal and other businesses to cut their use of toxic chemicals, Reilley acknowledged. "It's not a bad thing that the public know this information," he said.

But some changes would help government and business alike, he said, especially companies whose emissions are too tiny to pose a threat.

"I think the regulated community has, by and large, moved into the compliance mode," Reilley said. "I'd rather have regulators out looking for facilities that aren't cooperating, rather than have them sitting in an office reviewing data every year."

* *

Proposed changes

* The EPA would raise reporting thresholds for some toxic chemicals by as much

as tenfold and might let companies report every other year instead of yearly, under a

new proposal.

* The plan would save 8,000 businesses a combined 165,000 hours a year, but the agency says

the largest polluters would still report their use.

* New Jersey says dozens of neighborhoods would lose data on chemical releases in their

midst, including neighborhoods in Carlstadt, Clifton, Paterson, Ridgefield and Wallington.

* *

E-mail: nussbaum@northjersey.com

Source: Record, The; Bergen County, N.J.

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