Promoting Right to Know

Thomas Jefferson once said "Information is the currency of Democracy." At EPA, we believe that in a democracy one of the most fundamental rights is people's right to know about their environment and potential threats to their health and well-being. This issue of Greenbytes highlights several EPA New England right-to-know initiatives aimed at bringing environmental information to New England residents:




National Toxics Release Inventory Now Available

EPA's first and most well-known right-to-know program continues, with the May release of Toxic Release Inventory data for 1998. EPA also unveiled a new tool for the public to look at the information: the web-based TRI Explorer, which allows individuals to get information on specific facilities, chemicals, geographic areas, or industries. The Explorer is available at .

New England facilities reported releasing 44.4 million pounds of covered chemicals to air, water, and off-site disposal facilities in 1998. Looking only at chemicals and sectors covered since the program began, this represents a decrease of 80% since 1988. Press reports for each state, listing totals and the top ten polluters are on EPA New England's web site at

In order to maximize TRI's effectiveness and public benefit, EPA has expanded the inventory's scope several times since its beginnings, by adding new chemicals, reducing the threshold amounts (notably for persistent bioaccumulative toxins like dioxin and mercury), and expanding the range of facilities required to report. This year's data for the first time includes several new industrial sectors, including electric utilities, oil refining and mining.

Ozone Alerts and Maps Available

Hot summer weather marks the beginning of the ozone season in New England. Unhealthy ozone concentrations have already been recorded in Connecticut on May 6, 7, and 9, and in Rhode Island on May 8 and 9. Poor air quality affects everyone, but some people are especially sensitive to ground-level ozone, including children and adults who are active outdoors and people with respiratory diseases such as asthma.

EPA is teaming up with state agencies to get the word out when unhealthy air days are predicted, using press releases, ozone hotlines and an e-mail and fax notification system. To sign up for the notification system, go to . The website also has daily maps of predicted air quality across the region, maps showing peak concentrations for previous days, and animated maps showing ozone values changing across the region during the course of a day.

EPA is also, of course, working to prevent poor air quality days from happening. New, lower, auto emissions standards issued earlier this year will for the first time require SUV's to meet the same strict standards. In May, EPA also proposed new standards for diesel fuel and heavy diesel engines that will cut emissions of Nitrous Oxides from trailer trucks and buses by 95%. EPA New England has also worked with Rhode Island, Connecticut and Massachusetts to implement strong vehicle inspection programs to find and repair the worst polluting cars.

And finally EPA is cracking down on air pollution drifting across state lines [the animated ozone maps on EPA's web site dramatically show the plume of pollution drifting across New England from upwind areas]. In March of this year, a federal court upheld EPA rules requiring a reduction of approximately 900,000 tons of smog forming pollution in 19 states in the eastern United States, and EPA is aggressively pursuing legal action against power plants that have abused the 'grandfather' provision of the Clean Air Act to avoid meeting current standards.

Chelsea High School Students Forward Community Preparedness

In an innovative program, high school students in Chelsea, Massachusetts are spearheading efforts for their community's right to know about hazardous chemicals used in the city. A collaboration among EPA New England, Salem State College, and Chelsea High School, enables the high school to offer a class in computerized GIS mapping. The class uses emergency planning in Chelsea as a tool for teaching the computer programs.

The students find and organize information about potential chemical hazards in the city. Their work to make this information available has paid off. Because of them, over 70 companies in Chelsea have come into compliance with the federal Emergency Planning and Community Right-To-Know Act which mandates disclosure of potentially hazardous chemicals at businesses. This year's class culminated in May with a mock oil-spill drill at the Gulf Terminal on Chelsea's waterfront, with local, state and federal agencies participating.

The 125 students who have gone through the course have learned valuable skills and how to put their skills to work to make their communities better. In fact, XX students have gone on to summer or full time jobs at EPA New England.

Charles River Continues Progress; Mystic River Initiative Sets Similar Goals

One of the major components of the Charles River Initiative is making public information available about the river. Public information includes flags along the river indicating good or bad water quality for that day, our annual report card, and now, daily updates on the world wide web. EPA's right to know initiative and the US Geological Survey have teamed up to create a web site with real-time data. Go to EPA New England's Charles River site at , and click on the "USGS River Monitoring" link. Other information is also available from the Charles River Watershed Association website, available from EPA's Charles River site.

The river continues to make progress towards EPA New England's goal of a fishable and swimmable river by 2005. On Earth Day this year EPA gave the river a 'B', as it met boating standards 90% of the time and swimming standards 65% of the time in 1999. This is compared to a failing grade of 'D' in 1995, due to meeting swimming standards only 19% of the time.

The Charles River initiative was designed not only to clean one river, but also to demonstrate that urban rivers can be successfully cleaned up. And this spring, EPA New England was proud to join with Tufts University, the Mystic River Watershed Association, and the state of Massachusetts to target the Mystic River for cleanup, setting a goal of meeting swimmable standards by 2010. The Mystic River flows from Woburn, Massachusetts to Boston Harbor, passing through some of the most densely settled communities in the state. In announcing EPA New England's participation, Regional Administrator Mindy Lubber emphasized the agency's commitment to urban rivers: "People living along the Mystic in Malden or Chelsea have just as much right to clean water and healthy rivers as those in Berkshires or Cape Cod. With our success at cleaning Boston Harbor and the Charles River, we know it's not an impossible dream on the Mystic, and we're going to make it happen.".

EPA New England Orders Public Water Suppliers to Produce Consumer Reports

In 1999, citizens got another powerful right-to-know tool, as drinking water suppliers were required to begin producing and distributing annual Consumer Confidence Reports to all of their customers. These reports cover any problems detected with the water over the past year, and include an analysis of potential threats to the water supply.

In May, EPA New England took the first enforcement actions in the country against suppliers who failed to produce the reports. EPA ordered 58 public water suppliers to produce reports for 1999 and 2000 by July 1 this year.

More than 150 systems in New England failed to prepare these Consumer Confidence Reports and to make them available to the public by the October 1999 deadline. The 58 systems serving 100 people or more were targeted in last month's administrative orders. "We all have a right to know if the water we are drinking and giving to our children is clean and healthy," said Mindy S. Lubber, Regional Administrator for EPA New England. "These orders, which should not have been necessary, will help provide citizens with the drinking water reports they should have had in their hands nearly a year ago."

News Flashes
Updated June 20, 2000

GE/Housatonic River
The cleanup of the Housatonic River and other parts of Berkshire County continues to move forward. Excavation of river sediments and bank soils in several segments of the top half-mile of the river has been completed and we're still on target to complete that project by May 2001. Meanwhile, we expect later this summer to propose a draft cleanup plan for remediating the next 1? miles of the river. On the legal front, at a court hearing June 13 regarding the proposed Consent Decree, we notified the federal judge that after reviewing extensive public comments we continue to strongly support the cleanup agreement and expect to request in the next few weeks that it be formally entered and finalized.

Spill Prevention Ruling
In a major victory for EPA-New England, EPA's Environmental Appeals Board issued a favorable decision last month in the region's enforcement case against a Maine company that was found liable for discharging oil into the Androscoggin River and failing to have prepared a Spill Prevention Control and Countermeasures Plan. In upholding EPA-New England's charges and penalties, the appeals board provided strong support for EPA's view on the reach of the SPCC rules and the types of issues courts should consider in assessing penalties. More importantly, the decision sent a strong message to oil storage facilities across the country about their obligations under these rules....

MWRA Drinking Water
In a setback for public health protection, a federal judge in Boston ruled last month against EPA in our lawsuit to require the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority to provide drinking water filtration for two million Boston-area residents. The decision was obviously disappointing and we continue to believe filtration would provide substantially better public health protection than the ozone disinfection option proposed by MWRA. The deadline for a possible appeal of the court ruling is July 5.