EPA’s Efforts to Provide Communities With Information on the Risks Posed by Toxic Chemical Releases

Although EPA does not have any plans to expand the TRI to include information on the human health and environmental risks posed by toxic chemical releases, the agency has three projects under way that will provide communities with substantially more data on nearby facilities, the relative toxicity of their chemical releases, and the potential exposure to the releases. EPA recognizes that these projects separately and collectively are not definitive assessments of risks to individual communities. Opportunities Exist to Increase Accessibility of Chemical Inventory Data

Although the data reported under section 312 of EPCRA can be valuable to local emergency planning committees in their efforts to develop emergency plans and to reduce emergency personnel’s exposure to harmful chemicals, the use of the data by the wider public has been limited. During the past few years, two EPA regions have initiated projects to integrate state databases. Although EPA considers a national computerized database potentially worthwhile, the agency has no specific plans to assess the feasibility for such a database. Fire departments and other emergency responders have access to the data to help develop response plans before they arrive at the scene of a chemical accident or at a fire at a facility using hazardous chemicals. Although chemical inventory data can be useful to local citizens, the information has not been used extensively. EPA has supported efforts to computerize the chemical inventory data. According to the official, his office is concerned that, although EPCRA does not provide for EPA to receive the chemical inventory data and does not make the agency responsible for ensuring that they are accurate, states and industry may hold EPA accountable for the data’s quality if the agency aggregates the data from state databases and makes the information available to the public in either regional or national databases. For example, an official of the Sector Facility Indexing Project said that EPA worked for 3 years to identify the facilities to be included in the project and to collect and verify the data. The Deputy Director told us that such guidance could include policies, procedures, and standards for (1) setting priorities and performing cost-benefit analyses to determine which information projects should receive agency resources, (2) developing standards for the accuracy of data and mechanisms to determine and correct errors, (3) obtaining stakeholders’ involvement and analyzing users’ needs and (4) establishing other protocols that program offices should follow in designing information dissemination projects. He told us, however, that the Center has no specific plans to develop such policies, procedures, and standards. Conclusions

EPA is making progress in its efforts to provide communities with more information on releases of toxic chemicals in their areas. Not all of these activities are specifically directed by legislative mandates. Scope and Methodology

To identify the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) initiatives to provide additional information on the risks posed by toxic chemical releases to local communities, we held discussions with EPA’s Chief Information Officer and officials of EPA’s Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics, which has responsibility for the Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) program; Office of Policy, Planning, and Evaluation; Center for Environmental Information and Statistics; and Reinvention Office. Additional copies are $2 each.
Why GAO Did This Study

Pursuant to a legislative mandate, GAO determined the status of the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) efforts to: (1) provide communities with risk information on toxic chemical releases in their areas; (2) make the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act's (EPCRA) chemical inventory information publicly accessible; and (3) develop policies, procedures, and standards for disseminating environmental information to the public.

What GAO Found

GAO noted that: (1) EPA has three projects under way that would provide additional data to communities on releases of toxic chemicals from nearby manufacturing facilities; (2) although these projects are not being designed to comprehensively define an individual community's risks, collectively, they would substantially expand the information available to communities; (3) in addition to the Toxic Release Inventory's (TRI) quantities of chemical releases, this information is to include data on individual facilities' history of compliance with environmental laws, the relative toxicity of chemical releases, the dispersion of the releases to surrounding areas, and the estimated concentrations of the chemicals in the outdoor air from sources not covered by the TRI; (4) however, each of these initiatives has a different scope and timeframe for completion, and it could be several years before the initiatives' full promise would be realized; (5) although the data from the chemical inventory that is reported under section 312 of the EPCRA are potentially useful for such purposes as a citizen's finding out what chemicals are used at a nearby facility, public use has been limited; (6) much of the information has not been computerized to provide easy access and when it has, it is not available in regional or national databases that permit comparisons among industries or geographical areas; (7) EPA estimates that 868,500 facilities provide local emergency planning committees, fire departments, and the states in which they are located with data on thousands of hazardous chemicals; (8) in recent years, EPA has taken some steps to assist local and state efforts to computerize the data, and two EPA regions have initiated efforts to consolidate computerized state databases; (9) while EPA believes that such efforts might prove to be worthwhile, it has not provided funding for nor assessed the potential benefits and costs of developing a national computerized database for this information; (10) EPA has not developed policies, procedures, and standards to govern key aspects of its projects to disseminate information, such as the Sector Facility Indexing Project; (11) EPA also has not developed standards to assess the data's accuracy and mechanisms to determine and correct errors; and (12) while EPA has several initiatives under way to improve its data management practices, it has no specific plans to provide its program offices with guidance for designing, developing, and implementing their information dissemination projects.