The truth about toxins.

Sitting at a computer terminal in a noisy newsroom, New Orleans Times-Picayune writer Mark Schleifstein is making a county-by-county comparison of Louisiana's chemical plants, detailing what pollutants are released into the air and water, and how residents may be at risk. Halfway across the country, Lois Epstein, a researcher for the Environmental Defense Fund, is using online data to compare oil refineries across the nation, figuring out which are releasing the most toxins and if those figures relate to a lack of state regulation.

Both these researchers are using information from the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI), a database maintained by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as part of the 1986 Emergency Planning and Community Right to Know Act. The law requires specific industries manufacturing or releasing set amounts of chemicals into the environment to submit annual reports to the EPA. The reports detail how something was released, how many pounds are estimated to have escaped, and how the company plans to reduce emissions in the future. And, due to increased support by the Clinton administration - and a new book linking TRI data with cancer rates entitled Living Downstream - the list has been getting increased attention.

"One of the best things about the list is that it's 'multimedia,'" says Maria Doa, director of the EPA's toxics release branch. "That means it includes air, land and water releases, and it's easily available. In minutes, you can get information on your community, see who's releasing what, and then determine what your risk might be."

Can you trust information that the companies provide themselves? Doa says the EPA continues to review for clerical errors, and is currently doing voluntary spot checks. In addition, the agency operates outreach programs to help companies understand what they should be reporting, especially since seven industries (including petroleum storage tanks, electric utilities and mining operations) were added this spring. According to Schleifstein, once a company realizes it must report, it often cleans up emissions or reformulates production so that its public relations department is not faced with a public outcry.

But, as Epstein and other users of right-to-know laws point out, there are limitations. "The list is improving over time," she says, "but it runs two years behind, due to processing time, and the information is sometimes just not there."

While acetone and carbon are currently not included, dioxin will be added this year. Dioxin's addition highlights another problem regardless of an emission's toxicity, the EPA doesn't require it be listed until a very high concentration is reached. "We're asking ourselves if we should lower the reporting thresholds, and additions of chemicals are happening all the time," says Doa. CONTACT: EPA, TRI Branch, 401 M Street, Washington, DC 20560/[phone]; RTK Net, 1742 Connecticut Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20009/[phone]/http://www.rtk.net.