'Right To Know' (RTK) legislation was created in 1986 by Congress, as Title III of the Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act (SARA). Enacted in the wake of the Bhopal, India toxic gas disaster at Union Carbide's chemical plant, (almost 3000 people killed), the RTK legislation guarantees the U.S. public's right-to-know about hazardous chemicals in the community and increases every citizen's opportunities to participate in the emergency planning process - especially computer-literate citizens like STP users! RTK Title III has three sections:
1. TOXIC CHEMICAL RELEASE REPORTING (section 313) - You can learn about toxic releases from large facilities. All industries must report major releases to the air, water, and ground. The EPA collects the data on several hundred chemicals and makes this information available to the public via on-line TRI data bases and on CD-ROMs at many libraries that are Federal Depositories. (You can buy the CD ROM from EPA for $23: US Gov't Printing Office, 710 N. Capitol St. NW, Washington, DC 20401, stk#055-000- 00356-4) TRI stands for Toxic Release Inventory, and it is updated annually by the EPA.
2. COMMUNITY RIGHT-TO-KNOW (sections 311-312) - You can find out what chemicals a business is using.
3. EMERGENCY PLANNING AND NOTIFICATION (sections 301-304) - You can participate in local chemical safety planning.
We thank Paul Orum, editor of 'Working Notes on Community Right- to-Know', an excellent publication, for providing the above information. If you are interested in RTK or toxics, write and ask to get on Paul's mailing list:
'Working Notes'
US PIRG Education Fund
215 Pennsylvania Ave. SE
Washington, DC 20003
(202) 546-9707
Other computerized RTK resources include the new RTKnet - see Green BBS section, and two low-cost programs written by environmentalists:
RITE2NO is a $25 shareware database that lets you maintain and compare multiple years TRI data on a PC. Contact Glenn Gilchrist, Environmental Information Systems, (516) 422-7011. Glenn also sells a commercial fund-raising package to environmental groups.
For Mac users, James Hadden, of Intelligent Advisors, has written a LEPC Citizen's Helper Hypercard stack to manage the CAMEO database for SARA sect. 312 data. Contact James at (512)474-4719.
A list of hundreds of companies pumping ozone destroying chemicals into the air is available for use by local citizens to put pressure on polluters. The list, complied from the latest available EPA TRI data, is available from:
Natural Resources Defense Council
40 West 20th Street
New York, NY 10011
The price is $20 for NRDC members, $35 for everyone else. Orders must be prepaid. The list, "Who's Who of American Ozone Depleters", contains the names and addresses of all companies whose ozone-destroying chemical emissions exceeded 2000 pounds for the 1988 year. (Newer data is not yet available.) Why not order a copy of this important list, and find out who is dumping CFCs, methyl chloroform, and CCl4 in your city and state. If you own stock in any of these companies, write to the company presidents, and demand that they stop using these dangerous chemicals.
If your use of RTK information spurs you to action, contact the National Toxics Campaign for help. They can help you organize at the local level to stop the pollution! NTC also offers lab services to analyze toxics in air, water, or earth samples you may collect: National Toxics Campaign, (617)232-4014 ***
