Greenversations

By Kara Koehrn

In 1984, when a deadly cloud of chemical gas killed thousands of people in Bhopal India, a power movement was set in motion. Back then, Americans had little access to information about chemicals in their neighborhood. The spill in Bhopal along with another accident at a sister plant in West Virginia, awakened public interest in knowing more about potential hazards. Communities demanded information about toxic chemicals being released outside facilities, and it was in this environment that the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) was created by the Emergency Planning and Community-Right-to-Know Act in 1986.

25 years later, my coworkers and I are proud to continue the community-right-to-know tradition with the publication of this year’s TRI data and analysis. The report is called the TRI National Analysis and it can tell you whether toxic chemical releases have increased or decreased nationwide, what chemicals are being released in the Denver area, which industries are releasing the highest amounts in the Los Angeles area, or whether toxic chemical releases have increased in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. Take a look!

I am especially excited for this year’s analysis because it includes new features designed to make TRI data more informative and relevant. We have worked with economists to incorporate information on how the economy may be affecting TRI releases, included risks associated with TRI chemicals, more information on what facilities have done to help reduce their chemical releases, and translated even more materials than ever before into Spanish.

We publish the National Analysis every year, but EPA employees aren’t the only ones who can conduct analyses on TRI data. Any member of the public can analyze or look up what chemicals are being released in an area. My favorite tool to use for quick information about chemical releases in my zip code is myRTK (myRight-to-Know,) which I can access on my smart phone. But if I am at home and want to see long-term trends of TRI releases I use TRI Explorer or TRI.NET. Want to try? Follow this link to TRI’s tools.

We have come a long way since 1984, and I hope you take a look at the National Analysis and maybe even try a few of our analysis tools to see what chemicals are being released into your neighborhood. After all, it’s your right to know.

About the author: Kara Koehrn joined EPA’s Office of Environment Information in Washington, D.C. in 2009 and is the project leader for the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) National Analysis. She recently started a potted vegetable garden at her row house apartment in the city to grow fresh food locally without pesticides.

Editor’s Note: The opinions expressed in Greenversations are those of the author. They do not reflect EPA policy, endorsement, or action, and EPA does not verify the accuracy or science of the contents of the blog.

By Angela Miller

Three years ago I relocated to Washington, DC from Michigan to work for the National Pollution Prevention Roundtable (NPPR). Growing up along the Lake Michigan shoreline and near several inland lakes nurtured my reverence of nature and its connection to humanity. The community I grew up in was as well known for its natural beauty as it was for its history with pollution and toxic chemicals. Two lakes that are listed as Areas of Concern and a Superfund site all within a short drive of my childhood home inspired me to take up a career in environmental protection.

Working with NPPR, a national member based non-profit which provides a national forum for promoting the development, implementation, and evaluation of efforts to avoid, eliminate, or reduce pollution at the source, has afforded me an opportunity to work on a national level to prevent pollution problems like those that plagued my hometown during my childhood.

NPPR’s projects, especially those of recent, have focused on toxics reduction and elimination.
NPPR was awarded this summer a Great Lakes Restoration Initiative grant from the U.S. EPA to, among other project tasks, pilot a Safer Chemistry Challenge Program (SPPC) in the Great Lakes region. Another recent project is co-sponsoring the “2012 National Training Conference on the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) and Environmental Conditions in Communities” along with the Environmental Council of States (ECOS) and the U.S. EPA. Our co-sponsorship of this exciting conference provided the context for which EPA’s Office of Environmental Information invited me to participate in this Greenversations Blog. The April 11 – 13, 2012 conference will focus on pollution prevention (P2) and using Toxics Release Inventory data to promote sustainability. A call for abstracts deadline is November 19. Projects such as those bring me back to childhood aspirations to reduce or eliminate toxics that are released in communities to preserve both nature’s splendor and human health.

About the author: Angela Miller is the Deputy Director of the National Pollution Prevention Roundtable.

Editor’s Note: The opinions expressed in Greenversations are those of the author. They do not reflect EPA policy, endorsement, or action, and EPA does not verify the accuracy or science of the contents of the blog.

Each week we write about the science behind environmental protection. Previous Science Wednesdays.
By Jing Zhang

Want to know the weather tomorrow, the next movie showing, or the latest Hollywood gossip? There’s an app for that! In the age of smart phones, answers are literally at your fingertips on your iPhone or Android device. There’s no need to scour the internet for solutions when you can simply download an app that will gather the relevant information for you in a user-friendly application on your phone.

Working in EPA’s Office of Research and Development, I constantly hear of the developments and data that Agency researchers and scientists have produced. These scientists work diligently year around on protecting the environment and human health as outlined in Administrator Lisa P. Jackson’s Seven Priorities. What better way is there for communicating the resources and discoveries of EPA researchers than in an easy-to-use app on your mobile device?

The EPA Apps for the Environment Challenge invites software developers to use EPA data to develop apps so the public can understand or protect the environment in their daily lives. Want to know the air quality where you live or which cars have the least amount of greenhouse gas emissions? There could be an app for that!

EPA has a lot of data that is publicly available. This data includes information from the Toxic Release Inventory which tells you facilities that dispose of or release toxic chemicals, real time air quality monitoring, green vehicle guide that gives environmental performance guides for vehicles, a Superfund website, and chemical toxicity information from the ToxCast database. Because these datasets are overwhelming for those with less technical and scientific knowledge like me, EPA held a series of webinars where data owners explained the information.

If you’re like me and don’t know the first thing about developing an app, you can still participate by submitting ideas for apps. These ideas are useful in providing developers and researchers a window of insight into the needs and wants of the public.

For more information and rules, visit the Apps for the Environment website. The deadline for submissions is September 16. In the meantime, you can find out the latest information on Twitter, just search #greenapps.

About the Author: Jing Zhang is a student services contractor working with the science communications team in EPA’s Office of Research and Development.

Editor’s Note: The opinions expressed in Greenversations are those of the author. They do not reflect EPA policy, endorsement, or action, and EPA does not verify the accuracy or science of the contents of the blog.

By Kara Koehrn

Have you ever wondered what’s coming out of that factory stack you pass on the way home, or whether there are chemicals being released upstream from your favorite fishing spot? If so, maybe I can help you. I work with the EPA’s Toxics Release Inventory (TRI), which was designed to help the public answer questions just like these.

Before I came to EPA I knew very little about TRI. However, without realizing it, I had already read about chemical releases in news articles and scientific papers that used numbers from the TRI public database of chemical releases to the environment. I have since learned that TRI is a database with detailed information on over 600 toxic chemicals from over 20,000 U.S. facilities nationwide. You and I have access to information about disposal or other releases of chemicals into the environment as well as information about how facilities manage chemicals through recycling, energy recovery and treatment!

Over the past several months I have been involved in the preparation of the 2009 TRI National Analysis, which is EPA’s annual interpretation of TRI data. I was very excited to work on this project because TRI is such a rich database. It has a seemingly endless number of ways to slice the data and reveal national and local trends of releases to the environment including by chemical, geographic region, parent company, industry sector, etc.

This year I am especially eager for the release of the National Analysis because we have incorporated some exciting new features. It now includes analyses specific to 13 of the most populous urban areas in the country. Would you like to know about toxic chemical releases in the Denver area? What about Miami? How do they compare? The National Analysis also includes analyses for tribal lands and ecosystems like the Chesapeake Bay, Great Lakes and Gulf of Mexico. Take a look!

But EPA employees aren’t the only ones who can conduct analyses like these. Any member of the public can look up what chemicals are being released in an area. My favorite tool to use for quick information about chemical releases in my zip code is myRTK, which I can access on my smart phone. But if I am at home and want to see long-term trends of TRI releases for an area I use TRI Explorer or TRI.NET. Want to try? Follow this link to TRI’s tools.

I hope you take a look at the National Analysis and maybe even try a few of our analysis tools to see what chemicals are being released into your neighborhood. After all, it’s your right to know.

About the author: Kara Koehrn joined EPA’s Office of Environment Information in Washington DC in 2009 and is the project leader for the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) National Analysis. She recently started a potted vegetable garden at her row house apartment in the city to grow fresh food locally without pesticides.

Editor’s Note: The opinions expressed in Greenversations are those of the author. They do not reflect EPA policy, endorsement, or action, and EPA does not verify the accuracy or science of the contents of the blog.

By Pam Russell

Imagine riding along on a sunny day with your window down and suddenly become aware of a nasty smell coming from a industrial plant along the highway. What kind of manufacturing process would result in such a bad smell? What kinds of chemicals are being spewed out and what could that mean to you and your health? What if you could consult your mobile phone to find out more? No, you don’t need to call the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). You can learn a lot from EPA’s mobile website, MyRTK (as in, Right to Know), right from your handy web-enabled mobile phone or device.

Take a minute right now so that you will be ready when you see something you want to check. Click on the “apps “tab of EPA’s Mobile home page and select “MyRTK” or you can point your browser to http://m.epa.gov/myrtk. If your device has a GIS chip, click on the map tab to see your current location. If not, use the search feature to find facilities in your neighborhood.

What happens next? You’ll get a screen where you can type in any location. Maybe you’re on the New Jersey Turnpike just past Newark Airport. You could type in “Newark” or “Newark, NJ”. Within just a few clicks, you’ll be able to map and identify the surrounding facilities, the chemicals they handle and what’s in their releases, the potential health effects of those chemicals, and the compliance history of the facilities releasing the chemicals. While the information on facilities and chemical disposals or releases is drawn primarily from the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI data base), facilities with major Air, Water or RCRA (hazardous waste disposal) permits are also mapped. TRI facilities have blue map pins; all others have gray map pins. The information on compliance for all facilities is drawn from the Enforcement and Compliance History Online System.

If you want to report a possible violation or contact someone, click on the “What can I do?” at the bottom of the facility information page for links to EPA’s violation reporting page and information on how to contact state personnel or EPA’s Regional staff.

The MyRTK mobile application is an important advance in giving people access to information. With MyRTK, anyone can easily access information about the surrounding environment and learn what chemicals disposals and releases may mean to their local community.

Feedback on this new application is welcome. Use the “Feedback” button at the bottom of the Facility Information page to send us your comments.

About the author: Pam Russell is a scientist who works on the development of TRI tools in the Office of Environmental Information. She enjoys working on issues that make EPA’s science and information more accessible to the public.

Editor’s Note: The opinions expressed in Greenversations are those of the author. They do not reflect EPA policy, endorsement, or action, and EPA does not verify the accuracy or science of the contents of the blog.

About the author: Cory Wagner joined EPA’s Office of Environmental Information in 2005. He is currently the project manager for the development of the Toxics Release Inventory-Made Easy (TRI-ME) and TRI-MEweb reporting assistance software.

Individual rights have certainly been in the news lately. From the Olympic Torch being doused in France in protest of suspected human rights abuses in China, to the Supreme Court reviewing the DC gun ban in light of the Second Amendment, to the continuing struggle to balance an individual’s right to privacy against the safety of the general public in a post-911 world, one can hardly read a newspaper these days without seeing an article about rights. This makes sense as we are a nation built on rights. The rights of the individual are crucial to our way of life and the backbone of democracy.