Proposal to ease EPA rule at issue

What if you wanted to know how many pounds of lead compounds were being transferred out of Bose Corp. in Framingham? Or how much toluene was being released by the Polaroid plant in Waltham?

A federal database called the Toxics Release Inventory offers insight on those questions. For years, the national inventory has provided the public with information, updated annually, on large companies that use, emit, or manage certain chemicals considered potentially toxic.

It is information that environmental and health advocates such as Newton consultant Ellie Goldberg, who monitors the effects of toxic exposures on children's health, consider valuable in keeping the public informed. So, it concerns her that the federal government is thinking about scaling back the inventory, and allowing companies to report on their chemical emissions and waste management every other year, rather than annually.

''Reducing the amount of information available . . . is a serious violation of our rights as citizens," said Goldberg.

The potential change has been put forth by the Environmental Protection Agency, which assembles the Toxics Release Inventory based on annual reports from companies. The discussion on requiring those reports every two years occurs as the agency considers a separate proposal to raise certain reporting thresholds. Under the proposed changes, companies with production-related waste levels up to 5,000 pounds could submit shorter, less-detailed reports. The current threshold for most chemicals is 500 pounds.

Kim Nelson, assistant administrator and chief information officer for the agency's Office of Environmental Information, said the changes would be helpful for smaller companies that might consider the current reporting process time-consuming. The discussion on relaxing the frequency of reports is still in the early stages, said Nelson, who added that it will be useful to talk about ways to improve the program.

''I think that's exactly the public dialogue we have to have on the issue," Nelson said.

Companies must file reports if they use or process one of about 650 chemicals on the EPA's list, including lead, mercury, and asbestos. In Boston's western suburbs, companies such as Genzyme, Bose, Intel, and Polaroid are listed in the inventory, as are businesses in 20 other local cities and towns.

Robert Ruddock, general counsel for the Associated Industries of Massachusetts, an association of employers, said he believes companies are not trying to ''march away from disclosure," but most companies do not significantly change the amounts of chemicals they use from year to year. Annual reports, therefore, are unnecessary, he said.

Tom Natan, research director for the Washington-based National Environmental Trust, which has been monitoring the proposed changes, said the inventory figures are used by some local fire departments for emergency planning in case there is an incident involving one of the companies, and questioned whether reducing the number of reports would hamper those efforts.

Several fire departments in Boston's western suburbs, including Franklin, Marlborough, and Watertown, said they use a different set of EPA data -- which would not be affected by the changes -- for their planning.

But Newton fire officials do rely in part on the inventory data to know where certain chemicals are stored, said Jeremy Solomon, the city's director of policy and communications.

The city would be concerned, Solomon said, if it had no way of knowing whether companies decided to start using additional chemicals in the years when reporting was not required. Only one Newton company, Arichell Technologies, is listed on the EPA's website for its use of lead.

Liz Harriman, deputy director of the Toxics Use Reduction Institute, based at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell, said she is concerned that a year of no reporting would give companies ''an invitation to go the wrong way."

''Companies change radically in a year," she said.

Megan Amundson, legislative director for the Environmental League of Massachusetts, said the database is used by a number of government officials and researchers to monitor emissions.

''Our data would be cut in half," she said. ''You really couldn't count on accuracy."

But Roy Swartz, compliance manager for a Framingham company called General Chemical/ Clean Venture, said his reports do not tend to fluctuate much from year to year. The company is largely a ''clearinghouse" for waste from other companies, and the presence of heavy-duty cleaning solvents triggers the federal reporting process, Swartz said.

Swartz said he does not believe any crucial data would be lost if the reporting period were lengthened. ''I don't think things . . . do change that much," he said. ''Two years would be very, very appropriate."

Information on the Toxics Release Inventory, the proposed changes, and how to make a public comment may be obtained by visiting www.epa.gov/tri.