| For
Immediate Release: January 8, 2001 |
For
More Information:
Julie
Wolk, |
|
RIGHT-TO-KNOW
RULES SHED LIGHT ON LEAD POLLUTION EPA Requires 9,000 Industrial Facilities to Report Releases WASHINGTON—New
rules issued today by the EPA will require the disclosure of hundreds
of thousands of pounds of highly hazardous pollution that had previously
gone unreported, according to analysis by the U.S. Public Interest
Research Group (PIRG). The EPA announced today that facilities using
100 pounds of lead or lead compounds will be required to publicly
report their pollution, a measure that will inform Americans about
pollution that poses threats at even small levels. “This
rule represents dramatic progress for the public’s right to know about
pollution that significantly threatens children’s health,” said Jeremiah
Baumann, environmental health advocate for U.S. PIRG, a nonpartisan
public interest advocacy organization. Until
now, the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) program only required reporting
by facilities that handle 10,000 or 25,000 pounds, depending on its
use. Lead is hazardous in much smaller quantities, however, with effects
on children’s development that include physical and mental developmental
delays, learning and behavior disorders, and hearing loss. Lead has
even been linked to juvenile delinquency and crime. Impacts on behavior
and learning have been documented at levels of exposure four times
lower than previously thought. In addition, lead remains in ecosystems
indefinitely and is stored in the human body for more than 25 years. “Recent studies have shown damaging effects on children’s health at lower and lower levels of exposure to lead,” said U.S. PIRG’s Baumann. “Now the EPA is making sure Americans have a right to know when local industries pollute the air, land, and water with lead.” As initially proposed, the rule would have required reporting at a threshold of 10 pounds -- resulting in smaller releases being made public -- based on scientific studies of lead’s ability to persist in the environment and accumulate in the human body. Because of challenges to the rule by industries who release lead to the environment, EPA has issued the rule with a 100-pound threshold and will propose increasing reporting again if the agency’s Science Advisory Board confirms the scientific studies. Leading academic and scientific experts on lead exposure have urged the Clinton administration to lower thresholds to 10 pounds. “We continue to
urge the agency to require public reporting of all industrial lead
pollution, and the science shows that lead’s hazards justify full
disclosure,” said Baumann. “We look forward to the Science Advisory Board’s
confirmation of these findings.” U.S. PIRG is calling
on the new Congress to follow the administration’s action by passing
the Children’s Environmental Protection and Right to Know Act, which
would extend the right-to-know program to provide the public with
information on toxics like lead used in products, in the workplace,
and transported through communities. U.S. PIRG is the national advocacy office of the state Public Interest Research Groups, a nationwide network of nonprofit, nonpartisan public interest advocacy organizations. |
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