Are You Ready For Changes to USEPA Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) Reporting?

There are two important rulemakings, one final and one proposed as of the publish date of this newsletter, that you should be aware of when preparing to compile your TRI submittals for calendar year 2005.  As these changes are in flux, you should check out updates at www.epa.gov/tri before finalizing your submittal plans.

On July 12, 2005 EPA finalized revisions to the EPCRA Section 313 reporting requirements (70 FR 39931-39949) that “improve reporting efficiency and effectiveness, reduce burden, and promote data reliability and consistency across agency programs.”   The changes which affect EPCRA regulations at 40 CFR 372, became effective September 12, 2005 and apply to your submittals for calendar year 2005 due July 1, 2006.  This rulemaking is also known as “TRI Reporting Forms Modification Rule”.  EPA is also planning other revisions that will include more significant reporting changes.  Here is a summary of the changes set forth in this rulemaking. 

Facility Information

EPA has established the Facility Registry System (FRS) which will eventually become the primary source of all facility information used by EPA in the public access transactions.  The FRS provides more comprehensive information than presently provided on the TRI reporting forms and therefore EPA will rely on the FRS to provide information to the TRI database.  Therefore it is no longer necessary to provide information on: latitude and longitude coordinates, permit and environmental program identification numbers, and other TRI identification numbers.

Treatment Methods and Efficiency

The EPA has finalized five revisions to the TRI reporting applicable to onsite waste treatment methods and efficiency including:

1. Replacing waste treatment method codes reducing the list from 64 to the 18 which are currently used for hazardous waste treatment in the RCRA Biennial Reporting for hazardous waste.  In addition, since these codes don’t address air emissions very well, code H083 has been added to the list after being inadvertently removed from the proposed rule (Air or stream stripping).  H082 and H083 have had the qualifier “as the major component of treatment” removed.  The qualifier “at another site” has been removed from codes H111 and H112.  The qualifier “only” has been removed from code H121.
2. The need to report the concentration range of the covered chemicals in has been eliminated.
3. Facilities are now allowed to report their waste treatment efficiency as a range instead of an exact percentage.
4. The requirement to indicate if the reported waste treatment efficiency is based on actual operating data has been removed.
5. EPA has replaced the 16 codes for onsite recycling processes with the three codes used in the RCRA Biennial Report.

EPA will revise the TRI-ME reporting software to include a text box where facilities can provide a brief description of their applicable source reduction, recycling, and other pollution control techniques and activities.  A check box will be added to allow facilities to indicate that they are providing additional information.

Phase II of planned changes to TRI reporting, the “Burden Reduction Proposed Rule” was proposed on September 21, 2005.  The comment period ended on January 13, 2006.  Elements of this proposal include:

1. Increasing reporting thresholds for small businesses, or for classes of chemicals or facilities.
2. Expanding the eligibility for Form A use including reporting of PBT chemicals where facilities with zero releases of these chemicals.
3. Considering altering the reporting frequency to alternate years.

EPA estimates that these changes would eliminate 165,000 hours of reporting burden while impacting reporting on less than one percent of all releases and save $2MM in the of years to improve internal data management and availability to the public.

Remember that Methyl Ethyl Ketone (MEK) was removed from TRI reporting last year.  A number of our surface coating and printing/publishing clients have benefited from that change.  However, you are still encouraged to review all TRI chemicals for reporting threshold impacts.

For more information TRI rule changes or assistance with reporting, please contact Bill Barnes at Avogadro Environmental at bbarnes@avogadro.net.