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EPA ANNOUNCES YEAR 2000 TOXIC CHEMICAL RELEASE INVENTORY FOR NEVADA

Release Date: 5/23/2002
Contact Information: Wendy L. Chavez, Press Office, 415/947-4248, [email protected]

     SAN FRANCISCO -- Industries in Nevada reported a 14 percent decrease in the amount of toxic chemicals released into the air, land and water in the year 2000, according to new data released today by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.  

     The data comes from the EPA's Toxic Release Inventory, an annual measure of toxic chemical release, transfers and waste generated by facilities in the United States.  

     In Nevada, 94 facilities reported 1.01 billion pounds of toxic chemical releases.  Total releases include toxic chemicals discharged to air, water, underground injection, land (including landfills), and the amount transferred off-site for disposal.                  

     For the first year, the TRI includes information on the amount of dioxins and other "persistent bioaccumulative and toxic" or "PBT," chemicals.  PBT chemicals   which include mercury and PCBs   are toxic, persist in the environment and bioaccumulate in food chains.  Nevada facilities released a total of 10.916 grams of dioxins into air, land and water in 2000, ranking 43rd nationwide.

     "The Toxic Release Inventory program is intended to inform people what type of chemicals are being manufactured, stored and released in their communities," said EPA Regional Administrator Wayne Nastri. "This year we're including chemicals such as dioxin and mercury to the list of pollutants that must be reported, giving us a much more accurate picture of chemical releases within the state."
                                             
     In Nevada, 3.08 million pounds of on- and off-site releases of PBT chemicals were reported.  A significant portion of this total is comprised of land releases of mercury compounds from metal mining facilities.  

     Many mines extract, move, store, process, and dispose of large amounts of waste rock and ore  --materials that often contain low concentrations of naturally occurring metals.  The vast majority of this material is placed in surface impoundments or on the land, and the metals are reported as on-site releases to land.  There are also air releases from ore processing and metal refining operations.    

     The 2000 data shows that air emissions from toxic chemicals decreased by 31 percent to 3.3 million pounds and surface water discharges fell 17 percent from 1999.  Off-site land disposal releases increased by 2.4 million pounds.

     Nationally, there has been a chemical emissions decrease of 48 percent in manufacturing industries about 1.55 billion pounds over the 13-year history of the program.

     Since 1987, manufacturing facilities have been reporting their releases of 650 toxic chemicals and chemical categories under this program.  This marks the third year that seven new industrial categories, including metal mining and electric utilities, were required to report.

     The reporting of data to the Toxics Release Inventory is required under the federal Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act, passed in 1986. This program has been credited with arming communities with valuable knowledge and encouraging facilities to reduce their releases of toxic chemicals into the environment through source reduction, or pollution prevention measures.                                                  

     Fact sheets and additional information on the 2000 TRI data for Nevada are available at http://www. epa.gov/region09/toxic/tri/report.  The following Web sites also provide useful information on TRI: https://www.epa.gov/triexplorer/ and     https://www.epa.gov/enviro

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