Toxic chemical pollution up in 2002, EPA says

[UpInArms]

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/ny-ustox233864600jun23,0,6031756.story?coll=ny-nationalnews-headlines

Toxic chemical pollution from factories, power plants and other industrial facilities rose in 2002 for the first time in five years, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency reported yesterday.

EPA officials said the 5 percent increase in toxic releases nationwide, to almost five billion pounds, was due to a single Arizona copper smelter.

But an environmental group charged yesterday that because the EPA relies on data supplied by polluting industries, the agency is actually drastically underestimating the amount of benzene, butadine and other cancer-causing chemicals released into the environment.

"The public is being exposed to far more toxic air pollution than the EPA acknowledges for the record," said Kelly Haragan of the Washington-based Environmental Integrity Project.

Citing a study done by a Texas state environmental agency in Houston, Haragan said benzene and butadine levels in the air may be four to five times higher than official estimates in the EPA's Toxic Release Inventory database. The 18-year-old TRI program covers releases of about 650 toxic chemicals at 25,000 facilities.

<snip>

In 2001, chemical releases nationwide fell 13 percent, and during the 1990s yearly decreases averaged about 3 percent, Nelson said. The last year-to-year increase came in 1997, when there was a 2 percent uptick in emissions.

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[Karenina]

1. No nasty pictures

No boxcars, no carefully kept records, but LOTS of poisoned dying people... How efficient.