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Public Meetings on Reassessment of PCB Use Authorizations
EPA issued an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking related to potential reassessment of PCB use authorization under the Toxic Substance Control Act. Public comments are due on July 6; EPA will also be holding public meetings. Learn more here…
EPA Proposes Adding 16 Chemicals to the TRI Chemical List
On April 6, 2010, EPA took another important step toward providing communities with additional information about toxic chemicals being released to the environment.
EPA is Providing Communities with Additional Information about the Release of Hydrogen Sulfide into the Environment
The Agency is announcing that it is considering lifting the 1994 Administrative Stay of the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) reporting requirements for hydrogen sulfide. EPA is now presenting its rationale for why the Stay should be lifted, based on an updated evaluation that includes new information on human health and environmental effects of hydrogen sulfide. Learn more here...
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ECOS Awards Three Grants Under TRI Cooperative Agreement with EPA
ECOS has awarded three grants totaling $45,000 under its current five-year TRI Cooperative Agreement with EPA. These grants focus on environmental justice efforts as they relate to TRI with particular emphasis on addressing local environmental and/or public health issues in communities. The Literacy for Environmental Justice, World Resources Institute, and the Louisiana Bucket Brigade each received a $15,000 grant. Each of these groups will present its results at the 2010 National TRI Training Conference. A summary of the grants follows:
Literacy for Environmental Justice (LEJ) is an environmental education and youth empowerment organization created to address the ecological and health concerns of Bayview Hunters Point and the surrounding communities of southeast San Francisco.
LEJ's Youth with a Plan program promotes a community redevelopment process that supports the education, health, and empowerment of youth in southeast San Francisco. By using the Toxics Release Database, Youth with a Plan will contribute to the public review process of San Francisco Public Utilities Commissions Sewer System Draft Master Plan. The goal is to increase the community’s capacity to access important information resources.
Website: www.lejyouth.org
World Resources Institute (WRI) is an environmental think tank that finds practical ways to protect the earth and improve people’s lives. WRI's Access Initiative seeks to expand information access, public participation, and access to justice in matters affecting the environment.
Under this grant WRI will identify key barriers to accessing information from TRI for individuals and groups within the environmental justice community. WRI will develop key questions to address issues including cost, access to information infrastructure, website presentation, and political education in order to evaluate the needs of participating stakeholder groups and provide policy recommendations to ECOS.
Website: www.wri.org
Louisiana Bucket Brigade (LABB) is an environmental health and justice organization working with communities that neighbor the state's oil refineries, chemical plants, and other industrial sites. LABB’s mission is to support communities’ use of grassroots action to become informed, sustainable neighborhoods free from industrial pollution.
In 2007 the organization began a program called the Refinery Efficiency Initiative. The program works with neighbors of the state’s 17 oil refineries. Under this grant LABB will incorporate information about TRI into this program. An important part of this project is LABB’s collaboration WRI. LABB anticipates that staff members from WRI will be on hand to observe its methods as it presents TRI data to community members. Its techniques and approaches to dissemination of this data will be analyzed by WRI with a goal of developing a method for determining how people understand and use the data.
Website: www.labucketbrigade.org