Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) Facilities in the Bronx
(Text by Professor Juliana Maantay)
The Bronx has a number
of Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) facilities. This project, undertaken by
students in GEP 205/505: Principles of Geographic Information Science, was
intended to map the locations of these facilities, and determine the characteristics
of the people living in close proximity (within ½ mile) of these
facilities. In other words, where are the TRI facilities in the Bronx, and
who lives near them? The project also mapped Bronx schools to see which
schools were within ½ mile of one or more TRI facilities.The Toxic Release Inventory
(TRI) was established under the Federal Emergency Planning and Community
Right-to-Know Act of 1986, and requires that facilities meeting certain
criteria annually report to the government information pertaining to chemicals
they manufacture, process, or use. This information must then be made available
to the public. TRI covers approximately 650 toxic chemicals and roughly
25,000 facilities throughout the United States. A facility must report to
TRI if it manufactures more than 25,000 pounds per year or uses more than
10,000 pounds per year of one or more of the listed chemicals.The methods used to
analyze the geographic areas and populations in close proximity to the TRI
facilities involved plotting the TRI facilities on maps of the Bronx, "buffering"
the facilities with ½ mile buffer, and overlaying the various data
sets with the buffered areas. Once the population within the buffered areas
was calculated, the demographic and socio-economic characteristics of that
population were compared to the population of the Bronx as a whole. In addition,
schools were mapped and "clipped" by the buffered areas to identify
the schools that are located within a half mile of the TRI facilities.For reporting year 1994,
for instance, chemicals released into the air from Bronx TRI facilities
include 62,600 pounds of Trichloroethylene, 30,500 pounds of Tetrachlorothylene,
23,000 pounds of 1,1-Dichloro-1-Fluoroethane, 11,000 pounds of Sulfuric
acid, 8,500 pounds of Hydrochloric acid, 6,650 pounds of Xylene, 4,800 pounds
of Toluene, and 1,000 pounds of Glycol ethers. Potential health effects
from exposure to these chemicals can be found at the (Link to Agency for
Toxic Substances and Disease Registry).Although the Bronx does
not lead New York City in total amounts of TRI releases (Queens and Brooklyn
have more), county-wide calculations mask locally-borne impacts. Parts of
the Bronx, (e.g., the Hunts Point peninsula) receive relatively high emissions
from TRI facilities, compared with other parts of New York City. Additionally,
emissions from TRI facilities are only one source of pollutants experienced
by the people of the Bronx, and pending a definitive study of environmental
loads, TRI emissions may prove to be only a partial factor in assessing
cumulative impacts.Residents and workers
in the Bronx suffer from one of the highest rates of asthma hospitalization
and death in the country, as well as from high rates of other respiratory
diseases and other diseases suspected of being environmentally-linked. The
Bronx also contains a disproportionate number of pollution-producing activities
and facilities. Although conventional wisdom and intuitive logic would suggest
that there is a correlation between high rates of illness and high levels
of pollution, there has been no definitive determination of such a link
in the case of multiple sources of air pollution and asthma. (Link to asthma
project.) This is mainly due to the paucity of information about the health
effects of air pollution from multiple sources, the causes of certain respiratory
diseases, especially asthma, and the difficulties inherent in aggregating
and assessing impacts from multiple sources.Consistent with recent
environmental justice research, the people living in closest proximity to
the Bronx TRI facilities are predominantly African-American and Latino/a,
and are more frequently below the poverty level and unemployed than are
the residents of the Bronx as a whole. Areas in closest proximity to the
TRI facilities also tend to have a higher percentage of children 5 years
old and younger, reflecting a higher incidence of population potentially
more vulnerable to deleterious health impacts from TRI emissions. Additionally,
a large number of schools are within ½ mile of a TRI facility, and
several are within ½ mile of more than one TRI facility.
GEP 205/505 Students, Spring 1999:
Ghulam Mustafa Abasi
Walter Cerros
Beverly Davis
Elizabeth (Elle) Gonzalez
Phyllis Murray
Theresa Nnodum
Sherryann Pilgrim
Veronica Thompson
Jiin Wen
Instructor:
Dr. Juliana Maantay
Initial research and findings in this project were reported in "The Bronx Toxic Release Inventory Report," by Juliana Maantay, Linda Timander, Giovani Graziosi, and Lori Meyer, prepared by the Center for a Sustainable Urban Environment at Eugenio Maria de Hostos Community College of the City University of New York, 1997, as part of a Community-University Partnership Grant from the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Office of Environmental Justice.
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