Toxic pollution rose in 2002, reversing trend

[GreenPartyVoter]

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Toxic chemical releases into the environment rose 5 percent in 2002, marking only the second such increase reported by the Environmental Protection Agency in nearly two decades, and the first since 1997.

Some 4.79 billion pounds were released in 2002, the latest for which figures are available, not including releases from metal mining, the EPA reports. The agency stopped including that data because of a recent court decision in an industry challenge.

The increase reversed a recent trend, and was a big turnaround from last year's report by EPA that chemical releases in 2001 had declined 13 percent from a year earlier.

Kimberly Terese Nelson, the EPA's chief information officer, blamed the "extraordinarily large change" on the 1999 shutdown of BHP Copper Co.'s San Manuel plant in Tucson, Arizona, where 2,000 people worked. Dismantling a plant turns components and product into waste.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/science/06/23/toxic.pollutants.ap/index.html