Mining waste is top pollutant
Industry argues rocks aren't toxics, EPA says water fouled
Spokesman Review
Karen Dorn Steele - Staff writer
The mining industry was the nation's top polluter in 1999, contributing slightly over half the 7.77 billion pounds of toxic chemicals released to the environment, says a new government report.
The latest pollution figures were reported this week by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in its Toxic Release Inventory, a snapshot of annual U.S. releases of chemicals into air, water and landfills.
Last year, the Clinton administration announced the results in a press conference with EPA Director Carol Browner.
This year, the EPA simply posted the report on its Web site. Christie Whitman, the Bush administration's EPA director who is under fire from environmental groups for rolling back Clinton-era policies on mining and global warming, didn't schedule a press conference.
Congress passed laws in 1986 requiring the annual pollution inventory after the December 1984 explosion of a Union Carbide chemical plant in Bhopal, India, that killed an estimated 6,000 to 8,000 people.
In 1998, the mining industry was required to report its emissions for the first time. The mining releases have significantly altered the Toxic Release Inventory's profile of American pollution.
Idaho moved from 27th to 22nd among 50 states after mining companies, electric utilities and other industries now covered by the inventory reported releasing 59.5 million pounds of previously unreported pollutants.
Idaho's total toxic releases were 85.9 million pounds.
Washington state moved the opposite direction, from 28th to 37th, releasing 3.6 million pounds from mines and the other newly-covered industries, and 28.5 million pounds total.
Texas, a petrochemical giant, had the largest total releases: 257.9 million pounds.
The pulp and paper industry in Western Washington and several aluminum smelters, including Kaiser Aluminum & Chemical Co.'s Mead Works, made Washington state's "Top 10" list for 1999.
The Mead smelter has been shut down this year during the regional power crisis.
The mining industry is still fighting with EPA over the agency's definition of a toxic release -- and won a partial victory last year in a Colorado courtroom that could allow it to scale back on reporting future releases.
The U.S. District Court ruling said the EPA had erred in defining mining wastes as "processed" wastes.
"The Clinton administration was going to appeal the decision. We aren't sure if the Bush administration will," said Laura Skaer, Northwest Mining Association executive director.
The mining industry supports the Toxic Release Inventory, but objects to having to report unprocessed rock moved during mining as an environmental release comparable to wastes processed in manufacturing, Skaer said.
"The industry thinks just moving natural rock should not be considered a release. That's what our lawsuit was all about," she said.
Depending on the mine and the state, 95 to 98 percent of the releases the mining industry reported were for movement of rock, Skaer added.
Some public interest groups want the government to continue to require reporting of the mine wastes, which can contaminate groundwater and rivers when the rock is blasted and moved.
"Before they are mined, the rocks aren't really a problem. But if you haul them out of the ground and crush them up and then dump them, they are now available to oxygen and water, which can leach heavy metals into rivers and streams," said Alan Septoff, legislative director of the Mineral Policy Center in Washington, D.C.
EPA officials in the nation's capital didn't return calls Thursday seeking comment on whether the agency will appeal the Colorado ruling.
EPA has estimated that 40 percent of Western watersheds are polluted by mining wastes.
"We think it would be a tragedy to exempt mining waste," Septoff said. "It wouldn't be getting into our water if they hadn't hauled these wastes out of the ground."
Environmentalists seized on the toxic release report to further criticize President Bush for rollbacks of environmental regulations.
In his first three months in office, Bush scrapped new arsenic standards for drinking water and canceled stricter rules for the disposal of mining wastes that took effect last year after four years of rule-making and public hearings.
In this week's toxic release report, the EPA identified the mining industry as the largest releaser of arsenic, a known human carcinogen.
The industry reported releasing 585 million pounds of arsenic and arsenic compounds -- amounting to 97 percent of all arsenic-related releases in the country.
Environmental groups expect more fights over community right-to-know laws, including the Toxic Release Inventory, said Rick Blum of OMB Watch, a group that monitors executive branch decisions.
Since the first release reports were filed in 1988, most smokestack industries have responded to the public scrutiny by reducing pollution, Blum said.
The industries required to report over the past 13 years have reduced their emissions by 45.5 percent, or 1.46 billion pounds, when all their on- and off-site releases are counted.
However, off-site emissions from projects to stabilize metals and inject chemical wastes deep underground grew 8 percent, or 33 million pounds, during the same period.
There are now nearly 650 toxic chemicals that must be reported to EPA.
The Toxic Release Inventory report can be found at www.epa.gov/tri/
