United States               Pollution Prevention      EPA 745-F-98-002c
Environmental Protection       and Toxics            September 1998
Agency                   (7401)
Chemical  Right to Know Fact Sheet Series
The  TRI  Persistent
Bioaccumulators  Project
       The TRI persistent bioaccumulative toxics (PBT) project comprises several
 activities with the overall goal of obtaining effective reporting of PBTs to TRI and
 effective dissemination of TRI PBT information to the public. This activity supports
 EPA PBT activities agency-wide.

       Toxic chemicals which persist and bioaccumulate in the environment are
 more commonly referred to as persistent bioaccumulative toxics or PBTs. To date,
 with the exception of facilities subject to the alternate threshold exemption, EPA
 has applied an across the board reporting threshold for all listed chemicals. How-
 ever,  as the TRI program has evolved over time and as communities identify areas
 of special concern, thresholds and other aspects of the EPCRA section 313 reporting
 requirements may need to be modified to assure the collection and dissemination
 of relevant, topical information and data. Towards that end, EPA believes it would
 be appropriate to increase the utility of TRI to the public by adding a number of
 chemicals that persist and bioaccumulate in the environment to the section 313 list
 and by lowering the reporting thresholds for these types of toxic chemicals. Toxic
 chemicals that persist and bioaccumulate are of particular concern because  they
 remain in the environment for significant periods of time and concentrate in the
 organisms exposed to them. These persistent bioaccumulative toxic chemicals can
 have  serious human health and environmental effects resulting from low levels of
 release and exposure.  Lowering the reporting thresholds for PBT chemicals would
 insure that the public has important information on the releases and other waste
 management practices that involve these types of chemicals, that would not be
 reported under the current thresholds.

       EPA plans, by the end of 1998, to publish a proposed rule that will include
 the following:

        (1) proposed persistence and bioaccumulation criteria for EPCRA
       section 313;

       (2) the proposed addition of certain persistent and bioaccumulative
       toxic chemicals to the EPCRA section 313 toxic chemical list; and

       3) proposed lower "manufacture," "process," and "otherwise use"
       thresholds for the chemicals the Agency has identified as persistent
       and bioaccumulative.

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