3 NMI facilities on EPA’s TRI list for ‘03

Three facilities in the CNMI—the Hawaiian Rock Products, Mobil Oil Mariana Islands, Inc.’s Saipan Terminal and its Saipan Aviation Terminal—have been included in the Environmental Protection Agency’s 2003 nationwide Toxics Release of Inventory.

EPA press officer Dean Higuchi said the three facilities reported a total of 6,027 lbs of toxic chemicals released into the air, land and water in 2003, based on the new data released on May 11, 2005.

Wayne Nastri, EPA’s administrator for the Pacific Southwest region, said the TRI continues to be a useful tool for states, counties, and communities to know what types and amounts of chemicals are present in their neighborhood.

“In [the] CNMI, the releases to the air increased at one of the facilities reporting release data,” Nastri said.

The EPA said that the CNMI’s total releases increased by 8 percent in 2003 compared with its 2002 release. The increase, it said, might have been caused by an increase of benzene releases to the air from the Saipan terminal of Mobil Oil.

The information released by EPA is part of its annual measure of toxic chemical releases, transfers, and waste generated by facilities in the United States.

The TRI data reflects numbers submitted to the EPA by business and industry, and does not mean that facilities with elevated levels are out of compliance with state, local, or federal environmental regulations.

EPA said that, in a nationwide scale, disposal and other releases of the TRI chemicals totaled almost 4.44 billion lbs from over 23,000 U.S. facilities submitting over 91,000 chemical forms. From reporting year 2002 to 2003, there was a 6-percent decrease in total disposal or other releases into the environment.

“This was largely attributable to the metal mining sector,” said the EPA.

It said that, since 1987, manufacturing facilities have reported their releases of 650 toxic chemicals and chemical categories under this program.

Federal facilities began submitting reports in 1994 and in 1998, seven additional industry sectors began reporting their toxic chemical releases for the first time including metal and coal mining, electricity generation, commercial hazardous waster treatment, solvent recovery, petroleum bulk terminals, and wholesale chemical distributors.

The federal Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act in 1986 required the reporting of data to the Toxics Release Inventory.

“The program has been credited with arming communities with valuable knowledge and encouraging facilities to reduce their releases of toxic chemicals to the environment through source reduction, or pollution prevention measures.”