Protection Agency's Toxics Release Research Articles

Residential Proximity to Carcinogenic Industrial Air Emissions and Breast Cancer Incidence in a United States-Wide Prospective Cohort

Purpose: To evaluate whether residential proximity to air emissions of correlated industrial carcinogens, both singly and in combination, are associated with breast cancer incidence. Methods: Using the US Environmental Protection Agency's Toxics Release Inventory, we estimated the 10-year annual average air releases of 26 known or probable carcinogens within 3, 5, and 10 km of Sister Study participants' baseline residences (n = 50,343, 2003–2009). We used Cox proportional hazards regression to estimate adjusted hazard ratios (HR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) for the association between ambient concentrations of each individual compound and incident breast cancer. To assess mixtures, we applied an exposure continuum mapping (ECM) framework to identify latent mixture profiles via a self-organizing map and assessed whether these profiles were related to incident breast cancer by estimating a joint exposure-response function with generalized additive models. Results: During follow-up (mean = 11.6 years), 4,282 breast cancer cases were identified. The exposure prevalence for compounds emitted within 3-km of participants' residences varied from <1%–15%. For individual compounds, HRs for the association between quantiles of emission levels and breast cancer were largely null, except for cadmium, vinyl chloride and asbestos (e.g., asbestos 3-km HR>median vs. no exposure = 2.61, 95% CI: 1.37–5.09). Our application of ECM identified 49 profiles that explained 79% of the variance in emission patterns observed within 3-km of participant residences. Profiles revealed that relatively high levels of exposure to several compounds were rare (<1%) and most participants resided in locations defined by low emissions patterns. Estimation of a joint exposure-response surface indicated that breast cancer was not significantly related to changing patterns of the composition of emission mixtures (P = 0.31). Conclusions: Preliminary results suggest that breast cancer incidence may be related to emissions of certain individual industrial carcinogens, particularly asbestos. Examination of complex exposure scenarios revealed that high simultaneous exposure to many compounds was rare, and that our identified latent patterns of these emissions were not associated with breast cancer.

Something in the air: Toxic pollution in and around U.S. prisons

Toxic chemicals are released into land, air, and waterways daily. Exposure to such chemicals, however, is not equally distributed across the U.S. It is well documented that communities without agency and capital, typically economically and socially disadvantaged, are those that suffer the brunt of the impacts of a polluted environment. These impacts can have both acute and chronic health consequences, leading to lower life expectancy, higher cancer rates, and compromised immune systems. Emerging qualitative work indicates that incarcerated persons – individuals who have no agency to leave their environment – are disproportionately affected by our polluting practices. This study argues that environmental regulations across the country allow polluting industries to poison confined populations. Nationwide data from the Environmental Protection Agency's Toxic Release Inventory is used to examine if industries geographically closer to correctional facilities emit greater amounts of toxic chemicals. Regional differences are examined as well. Results identify a pattern of harm – incarcerated persons who already have compromised health are also exposed to high levels of toxic chemicals.

Finding Potential Replacements for TRI Solvents Using the Environmental Impact of the Average Solvent.

A solvent has many different types of impact on the environment. This article describes a method that combines several different types of impacts together into one environmental index so that similar solvents may be compared by their cumulative impact to the environment. The software tool PARIS III (Program for Assisting the Replacement of Industrial Solvents III) initially finds thousands of solvents mixtures with behaviors as close as possible to those of the original solvent entered. The overall environmental impacts of these solvent mixtures are estimated and assigned to environmental indexes. Users of the software tool can then choose replacements for the original solvent with similar activities but with significantly smaller environmental indexes. These solvent mixtures may act as practical substitutes for the industrial solvents but substantially reduce the overall environmental impact of the original harmful solvents. Potential replacements like this are found for three of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Toxic Release Inventory solvents, carbon tetrachloride, toluene, and N-methylpyrrolidone.

Ambient air exposures to arsenic and cadmium and overall and prostate cancer-specific survival among prostate cancer cases in Pennsylvania, 2004 to 2014.

Exposures to arsenic (As) and cadmium (Cd) have been associated with higher prostate cancer (PC) mortality; however, these associations have been inconsistent. The authors investigated whether higher ambient air concentrations of As and Cd are associated with lower overall and PC-specific survival among PC cases in Pennsylvania. Incident PC cases of patients, aged 40 years or older, with a clinical diagnosis and nonmetastatic disease were identified in the 2004 to 2014 Pennsylvania Cancer Registry. Demographic, clinical, and pathologic information were extracted from the Pennsylvania Cancer Registry. The 3- and 5-year average and cumulative air concentrations of As and Cd were extracted from the Environmental Protection Agency's Toxics Release Inventory database. Spatial-temporal hierarchical accelerated failure time models were used to examine the associations between air concentrations of As and Cd and overall and PC-specific survival for the total population and stratified by geographical region defined by rurality and Appalachia status, after adjusting for confounders. There were 78,914 PC cases included. Increasing 3- and 5-year average and cumulative air concentrations of As and Cd were significantly associated with lower overall and PC-specific survival among cases, after adjusting for confounders, for the total population, and stratified by geographical region for most of the estimates. Data suggest that increasing ambient air exposures to As and Cd may play a role in overall and PC-specific mortality risk among PC cases. Exposures to As and Cd are modifiable and may provide insight into potential strategies to improve PC health outcomes. Arsenic and cadmium exposures linked to increased prostate cancer deaths remain unclear. We investigated whether air levels of arsenic and cadmium reported to be released from industries decrease overall and prostate cancer-specific survival among prostate cancer cases identified in the 2004 to 2014 Pennsylvania Cancer Registry. Among the 78,914 prostate cancer cases, increasing air levels of arsenic and cadmium are found to be associated with lower overall and prostate cancer-specific survival for the total population and within rural and urban Appalachia and urban non-Appalachia counties in Pennsylvania. Reducing exposures to arsenic and cadmium have the potential to decrease prostate cancer deaths.

The impact of toxic chemical releases and their management on financial performance

This paper examines the extent to which environmental performance affects firm profitability, where environmental performance is measured by toxic chemical releases per sales dollar and toxic chemical management (treat, recycle, or recovery) per sales dollar. Conclusions are drawn based on a sample of U.S.-based publicly-traded companies that reported to the Environmental Protection Agency's Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) program between 2001 and 2017. The results show that publicly-traded companies that reduce emissions see an increase in their Tobin's q. In addition, the effects of reducing emissions, treating toxic chemicals to minimize their environmental impact, or combusting toxic chemicals for energy, are more significant for companies that consistently fall under the mandatory reporting requirements of the TRI program. However, recycling toxic chemicals is associated with negative financial consequences for these companies.

Director appointments, boardroom networks, and firm environmental performance

Using BoardEx (2000{2017), we create a dynamic network connecting firms and board directors for the United States. We use the Environmental Protection Agency's Toxic Release Inventory to measure environmental performance at the director and rm-level. We examine how a candidate's environmental performance and networks affect director appointments. This allows us to endogenize the effect of directors' environmental experience when studying the impact on firms' chemical releases. We show that firms are likely to appoint influential directors with good environmental records and similar characteristics. Further, boards with good environmental performance and with diverse environmental backgrounds improve firms' environmental performance.

Impact of droughts on industrial emissions into surface waters.

In this paper, we examine the impact of droughts on industrial emissions into surface waters and transfers to publicly owned treatment works (POTWs). We use industrial discharges into surface waters data from the US Environmental Protection Agency's Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) database. We employ runoffs normalized using previous 61-year average runoffs as a proxy for drought. We match both the discharges into surface waters and the runoffs at the 8-digit hydrologic unit code (HUC) level. Our analysis indicates that normalized runoffs of the current and previous years positively influence industrial emissions into surface waters. We also find that the impact of uneven availability of water on emissions is higher on larger facilities. Normalized runoffs of the current and previous years do not have a statistically significant influence on transfers to publicly owned treatment works. However, normalized runoffs of the previous year do affect transfers of larger facilities. Businesses are dependent on water not only for their operations but to discharge their pollutants as well. Climate change will increase the frequency and intensity of droughts and floods. Therefore, every business that requires significant quantities of water must plan to cope with uneven availability of water.

Relationship between Positive Environmental Disclosures and Environmental Performance: An Empirical Investigation of the Greenwashing Sin of the Hidden Trade‐off

SummaryFirms make positive discretionary disclosures about their environmental efforts in order to signify attention to the environmental impacts of their operations. On the one hand, firms may choose to make these disclosures to deflect attention away from other activities that may contribute negatively to their environmental performance (i.e., greenwashing in the form of the “sin of the hidden trade‐off ”). On the other hand, firms making these disclosures may legitimately improve their overall environmental performance. Our study empirically addresses the following question: Do firms that make positive discretionary environmental disclosures improve their overall environmental performance more than the firms that do not make such disclosures? Specifically, because press announcements have been shown to be a popular medium for positive discretionary disclosures, we examine the relationship between announcements in the press of firms’ environmental efforts beyond compliance, and suitably weighted‐aggregated firm‐level releases of the range of pollutants reported to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Toxics Release Inventory (TRI). We employ matching methods (coarsened exact matching and propensity score matching) that account for potential sources of endogeneity, including the relationship between firms’ prior environmental performance and their propensity to disclose environmental information. Our findings from the matching methods provide encouraging evidence that greenwashing in the form of the sin of the hidden trade‐off does not appear to be prevalent. Additionally, our post hoc analysis explores factors based on the content of disclosures and industry, that may help explain differences in environmental performance among the firms making the disclosures.

Press and leaks: Do newspapers reduce toxic emissions?

This study investigates the effects of media on corporate environmental decisions. Using data on plant-level toxic emissions from 1996 to 2009 from the US Environmental Protection Agency's Toxics Release Inventory, and newly collected data on the location and content of newspapers, I find that the probability that a plant's emissions are featured in a nearby newspaper increases with the plant's proximity to the newspaper's headquarter. Further, plants located near a larger number of newspapers' headquarters produce lower toxic emissions. The latter result is specific to plants operating in those industries that produce consumer goods, suggesting an important role of accountability through consumer demand. An event-study analysis also shows that when newspapers cover the emissions of consumer goods producers, these reduce their emissions by 29% with respect to those plants that were not covered, whereas there is no evidence of differential trends in the years that lead up to coverage.

The Great Recession, the Treadmill of Production and Ecological Disorganization: Did the Recession Decrease Toxic Releases Across US States, 2005–2014?

The treadmill of production, ecological Marxist, steady-state economics and the natural science literatures suggest that economic growth and pollution are linked. We use the economic downturn resulting from the Great Recession in 2008–2009 as a natural experiment to test this hypothesis. Specifically, we examine the effect of the Great Recession on pollution measured by the Environmental Protection Agency's Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) using maps and fixed-effects regression models for US states for the period 2005–2014. Multivariate time-series analysis demonstrates that even when adjusting for controls there is a unique and negative effect of the recession on TRI levels. We situate our findings in the relevant literature, suggest possibilities for what the recession effect may be capturing, and discuss some implications of increased pollution levels.

Relations Between Residential Proximity to EPA-Designated Toxic Release Sites and Diffuse Large B-Cell Lymphoma Incidence.

Examining the spatial patterns of diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) incidence and residential proximity to toxic release locations may provide insight regarding environmental and sociodemographic risk factors. We linked and geocoded cancer incidence data for the period 1999-2008 from the Georgia Comprehensive Cancer Registry with population data from the US Census and the Environmental Protection Agency's Toxics Release Inventory. We conducted cluster analyses and constructed Poisson regression models to assess DLBCL incidence as a function of mean distance to the toxic release sites. In total, 3851 incident DLBCL cases occurred among adults residing in Georgia between 1999 and 2008. Significant focal clustering was observed around 57% of ethylene oxide sites, 5% of benzene sites, 9% of tetrachloroethylene sites, 7% of styrene sites, 10% of formaldehyde sites, 5% of trichloroethylene sites, and 10% of all release sites. Mean distance to sites was significantly associated with DLBCL risk for all chemicals. Proximity to Toxics Release Inventory sites can be linked to increased DLBCL risk as assessed through focal clustering and Poisson regression, and confirmatory studies using geospatial mapping can aid in further specifying risk factors for DLBCL.

ChemInform Abstract: On the Design of Safer Chemicals: A Path Forward

AbstractReview: 72 refs.

The Impact of Pollution Prevention on Toxic Environmental Releases from U.S. Manufacturing Facilities.

Between 1991 and 2012, the facilities that reported to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) Program conducted 370,000 source reduction projects. We use this data set to conduct the first quasi-experimental retrospective evaluation of how implementing a source reduction (pollution prevention) project affects the quantity of toxic chemicals released to the environment by an average industrial facility. We use a differences-in-differences methodology, which measures how implementing a source reduction project affects a facility's releases of targeted chemicals, relative to releases of (a) other untargeted chemicals from the same facility, or (b) the same chemical from other facilities in the same industry. We find that the average source reduction project causes a 9-16% decrease in releases of targeted chemicals in the year of implementation. Source reduction techniques vary in effectiveness: for example, raw material modification causes a large decrease in releases, while inventory control has no detectable effect. Our analysis suggests that in aggregate, the source reduction projects carried out in the U.S. since 1991 have prevented between 5 and 14 billion pounds of toxic releases.

Do environmental right-to-know laws affect markets? Capitalization of information in the toxic release inventory

This paper investigates how information contained in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) program, one of the largest environmental right-to-know programs, affects prices in the housing market. I use a strengthening of the reporting requirements for the chemical lead in 2001 as exogenous variation to test for housing price changes near existing firms who must now report. Using a difference-in-differences specification, I find that listing an existing firm in the Toxic Release Inventory lowers housing prices up to 11% within approximately 1 mile. The results suggest that housing market participants do capitalize into prices at least some information conveyed by the TRI program.

Ten Years of Change: National Library of Medicine TOXMAP Gets a New Look

The United States National Library of Medicine (NLM) TOXNET® databases <http://toxnet.nlm.nih.gov> provide broad coverage of environmental health information covering a wide variety of topics, including access to the U.S. Environment Protection Agency (EPA)'s Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) data. The NLM web-based geographic information system (GIS), TOXMAP® <http://toxmap.nlm.nih.gov/>, provides interactive maps which show where TRI chemicals are released into the environment and links to TOXNET for information about these chemicals. TOXMAP also displays locations of Superfund sites on the EPA National Priority List, as well as information about the chemical contaminants at these sites. This column focuses on a new version of TOXMAP which brings it up to date with current web GIS technologies and user expectations.

Residence proximity to benzene release sites is associated with increased incidence of non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

An increased risk of non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) has been observed among individuals with occupational exposure to benzene, but the risk among those living near benzene release sites has not been well described. To investigate the spatial patterns of NHL incidence and the association between NHL incidence and distance to benzene release sites, the authors linked and geocoded data on benzene release sites in Georgia from 1988 to 1998 using the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Toxics Release Inventory (TRI), census tract level population statistics, and NHL incidence from the Georgia Comprehensive Cancer Registry (GCCR) from 1999 to 2008. Standardized incidence ratios were mapped by census tract, and a Poisson regression was performed on NHL and NHL subtype incidence data using the mean distance between the tract centroids and release sites as markers of exposure. Cluster analyses were conducted at the global, local, and focal levels. Poisson regression indicated that, for every mile the average distance to benzene release sites increased, there was an expected 0.31% decrease in the risk of NHL. Similar results were observed for all NHL subtypes analyzed. Clusters of NHL were spatially associated with benzene release sites located in metropolitan areas, but not with release sites in other areas of the state. NHL incidence was significantly higher in census tracts that were closer, on average, to benzene release sites. Additional studies are needed to examine spatial patterns of NHL incidence in other geographic regions and interactions between benzene and other exposures.

Estimation of mercury emissions from forest fires, lakes, regional and local sources using measurements in Milwaukee and an inverse method

Abstract. Gaseous elemental mercury is a global pollutant that can lead to serious health concerns via deposition to the biosphere and bio-accumulation in the food chain. Hourly measurements between June 2004 and May 2005 in an urban site (Milwaukee, WI) show elevated levels of mercury in the atmosphere with numerous short-lived peaks as well as longer-lived episodes. The measurements are analyzed with an inverse model to obtain information about mercury emissions. The model is based on high resolution meteorological simulations (WRF), hourly back-trajectories (WRF-FLEXPART) and a chemical transport model (CAMx). The hybrid formulation combining back-trajectories and Eulerian simulations is used to identify potential source regions as well as the impacts of forest fires and lake surface emissions. Uncertainty bounds are estimated using a bootstrap method on the inversions. Comparison with the US Environmental Protection Agency's National Emission Inventory (NEI) and Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) shows that emissions from coal-fired power plants are properly characterized, but emissions from local urban sources, waste incineration and metal processing could be significantly under-estimated. Emissions from the lake surface and from forest fires were found to have significant impacts on mercury levels in Milwaukee, and to be underestimated by a factor of two or more.

Environmental reporting on the internet by America's Toxic 100: Legitimacy and self-presentation

This study uses Goffman's self-presentation theory to examine corporate website environmental disclosures from an organizational legitimacy perspective. We argue that corporations use Internet reporting and website platforms to project a more socially acceptable environmental management approach to public stakeholders. We argue further that this disclosure activity is often de-coupled from their actual environmental performance. To test these conjectures, we refine and employ a comprehensive disclosure evaluation metric to assess both the content and the presentation of these types of disclosures and utilize a firm's America's Toxic 100 toxic score, a newly developed measure based on the US Environmental Protection Agency's toxics release inventory (TRI) data, to proxy for environmental performance. Based on empirical tests of four size-matched samples, our findings support our conjectures, showing that worse environmental performers provide more extensive disclosure in terms of content and website presentation.

Racial and Socioeconomic Disparities in Residential Proximity to Polluting Industrial Facilities: Evidence From the Americans' Changing Lives Study

We sought to demonstrate the advantages of using individual-level survey data in quantitative environmental justice analyses and to provide new evidence regarding racial and socioeconomic disparities in the distribution of polluting industrial facilities. Addresses of respondents in the baseline sample of the Americans' Changing Lives Study and polluting industrial facilities in the Environmental Protection Agency's Toxic Release Inventory were geocoded, allowing assessments of distances between respondents' homes and polluting facilities. The associations between race and other sociodemographic characteristics and living within 1 mile (1.6 km) of a polluting facility were estimated via logistic regression. Blacks and respondents at lower educational levels and, to a lesser degree, lower income levels were significantly more likely to live within a mile of a polluting facility. Racial disparities were especially pronounced in metropolitan areas of the Midwest and West and in suburban areas of the South. Our results add to the historical record demonstrating significant disparities in exposures to environmental hazards in the US population and provide a paradigm for studying changes over time in links to health.

Residential proximity to industrial facilities and risk of non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

Industrial pollution has been suspected as a cause of non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL), based on associations with chemical exposures in occupational studies. We conducted a case-control study of NHL in four SEER regions of the United States, in which residential locations of 864 cases and 684 controls during the 10 years before recruitment were used to characterize proximity to industrial facilities reporting chemical releases to the Environmental Protection Agency's Toxics Release Inventory (TRI). For each of 15 types of industry (by 2-digit SIC code), we evaluated the risk of NHL associated with having lived within 2 miles of a facility, the distance to the nearest facility (miles categories of < or =0.5, >0.5-1.0, >1.0-2.0, >2 [referent]), and the duration of residence within 2miles (years categories of 10, 1-9, 0 [referent]), using logistic regression. Increased risk of NHL was observed in relation to lumber and wood products facilities (SIC 24) for the shortest distance of residential proximity (< or =0.5 mile: odds ratio [OR]=2.2, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.4-11.8) or the longest duration (10 years: OR=1.9, 95% CI: 0.8-4.8); the association with lumber facilities was more apparent for diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (lived within 2 miles: OR=1.7, 95% CI: 1.0-3.0) than for follicular lymphoma (OR=1.1, 95% CI: 0.5-2.2). We also observed elevated ORs for the chemical (SIC 28, 10 years: OR=1.5, 95% CI: 1.1-2.0), petroleum (SIC 29, 10 years: OR=1.9, 95% CI: 1.0-3.6), rubber/miscellaneous plastics products (SIC 30, < or =0.5mile: OR=2.7, 95% CI: 1.0-7.4), and primary metal (SIC 33, lived within 2miles: OR=1.3, 95% CI: 1.0-1.6) industries; however, patterns of risk were inconsistent between distance and duration metrics. This study does not provide strong evidence that living near manufacturing industries increases NHL risk. However, future studies designed to include greater numbers of persons living near specific types of industries, along with fate-transport modeling of chemical releases, would be informative.