The Toxics Release Inventory is a publicly available database containing information on toxicchemical releases and other waste management activities in the United States.
Summary of requirements
The database is available from the United States Environmental Protection Agency and contains information reported annually by some industry groups as well as federal facilities. Each year, companies across a wide range of industries that produce more than 25,000 pounds or handle more than 10,000 pounds of a listed toxic chemical must report it to the TRI. The TRI threshold was initially set at 75,000 pounds annually. If the company treats, recycles, disposes, or releases more than 500 pounds of that chemical into the environment, then they must provide a detailed inventory of that chemical's inventory.
Proposed changes in late 2005 would have weakened the reporting standards for the TRI program. Several state attorneys general wrote to EPA asking that the standard not be altered. The proposed revisions came under fire from Eliot Spitzer, then the Attorney General for New York, who said "Public disclosure has proven to be a strong incentive for polluters to reduce their use of toxic chemicals, this move by EPA appears to be yet another poorly considered notion to appease a few polluting constituents at the expense of a valuable program." EPA originally proposed to reduce the required reporting frequency from every year to every other year. This drew intense criticism, and the idea was dropped. However, EPA went forward with another part of the plan that initially did not receive much attention. Companies were previously required to disclose any release over 2000 pounds on a more detailed "Form R" rather than the less detailed "Form A." With the new regulations, the minimum reporting requirements for Form R have been increased to 5000 pounds, thus reducing the amount of information available. Although this move was widely criticized by the public as well as many officials, EPA went ahead with the new rule anyway. EPA claimed that the comments submitted opposed to the Form R requirements were invalid because nearly all the people who had commented did so on both the change in reporting frequency as well as the minimum amounts required for Form R.
Accessing TRI data
The data in the Toxic Release Inventory is available to the public, but initially the system was difficult to access. In recent years, EPA and several other organizations have made the task much easier. Mapping Systems There are several tools for mapping the TRI data to particular locations. These tools also allow the user to view some of the information in the database.
MapEcos.org was a browser-based tool. It allowed users to access an interactive map of the US showing the most recent TRI data. The map could be searched for locations of interest. At lower zoom levels, it allowed the user to get information on pollution from particular facilities. This site was created by faculty and students at Dartmouth College, Harvard Business School, and Duke University, but was shut down in 2011.
has created a downloadable for Google Earth which shows all of the most recent reports to the TRI database. It also includes locations from the equivalent Canadian and Mexican pollution inventory. The system currently only maps the locations and links to data at the national registries.
DotGovWatch offers a simple browser-based map of TRI data. The map can be searched by city, address, and each facility's detailed emissions are available.
Research Oriented Portals
Run by Center for Effective Government, this site provides access to current to a variety of EPA data, including data for the TRI. Queries allow users to download files with the raw data.
The EPA also provides access to the raw data through their site. As with RTK net, queries to the underlying relational database produce downloadable text documents.
