Toxic Emissions Fell 9% in ‘88, EPA Reports : Pollution: A total of 4.57 billion pounds of chemicals were released. Los Angeles County figures were up 1%.

The amount of toxic chemicals released by industrial plants into the nation’s air, surface water and underground wells declined in 1988, the Environmental Protection Agency said Wednesday.

Industrial emissions in Los Angeles County increased slightly, the agency said.

A total of 19,762 plants released 4.57 billion pounds of toxic chemicals into the environment in 1988, or 9% less than in 1987, according to the agency’s second annual “toxic release inventory.”

EPA Administrator William K. Reilly hailed the report as establishing a base line from which the agency “intends to make a tangible, measurable reduction in toxic emissions that harm human health and the environment.”

He called it encouraging that toxic releases were lower in 1988 than in the previous year, attributing the reduction in part to better pollution prevention by corporations. The decline also reflected “improved emission estimates and a better understanding of reporting requirements” by plants involved in the survey, Reilly said.

According to the study, pollution from petroleum refineries caused Louisiana and Texas to receive the highest toxic chemical ratings among the 50 states, with California ranking ninth as a result of its large number of electronics and aerospace manufacturing plants.

California ranked first among states in the volume of ozone-depleting chemicals released into the air from industrial sites. Such pollutants are byproducts of high-technology industrial plants, officials said.

The survey showed that 2.43 billion pounds of toxic chemicals, or more than half the national total for all pollutants, were released into the air. The next largest amount, 1.22 billion pounds, went into underground wells. Smaller amounts were discharged into rivers, lakes or streams or disposed of in landfills.

In Los Angeles County, industrial sites discharged 89.9 million pounds of pollutants, about 1% more than in the previous year. More than a quarter of the Los Angeles total was attributable to a single polluter. Filtrol Corp., a chemical manufacturer in Vernon, released 23.5 million pounds of pollutants, ranking it 35th among all individual polluters in the nation.

Paul Grissom, manager of the Vernon plant, said that the release cited by the EPA was composed almost entirely of ammonium sulfate, a processing chemical used in the manufacture of the petroleum refining catalysts made by the plant. The firm has a government permit to release the sulfate, a dissolved salt, into its waste water discharge, which is treated at a regional sewage plant, Grissom said.

The toxicity of the ammonium sulfate is so low that, starting this year, the federal government no longer is requiring companies to report its release under the Superfund law, Grissom said. Nonetheless, he declared: “We’re concerned about any and all releases and our policy is to reduce them.”

Filtrol, a subsidiary of Akzo Chemical Inc. of Chicago, is one of about 1,200 industrial plants and warehouses in Vernon, a city in southeast Los Angeles County that is home to fewer than 100 residents.

Regional air pollution officials said that the only recent complaints they have received about Filtrol were related to non-toxic dust emissions. And Vernon’s hazardous materials specialist said that, while the company has had some chemical spills and uses a number of hazardous materials, it is in compliance with hazardous materials regulations.

Of the nearly 20,000 plants surveyed across the country, three companies--DuPont, Monsanto and American Cyanamid--operate facilities that accounted for 15% of the nation’s total industrial emissions in 1988, the agency said.

Reilly did not accuse any plants of violating federal clean-air standards. But he said that the survey statistics “should be considered to be among the most important weapons in efforts to combat pollution,” noting that the agency had used the data to negotiate reductions of 80% in toxic air emissions from 40 of the worst polluting plants in the country.

Reilly called on Congress to take prompt action in passing proposed Clean Air Act amendments currently under consideration by a joint Senate-House conference committee.

“The President’s bill, when fully enacted, will require a 75% to 90% reduction in air toxic emissions throughout the country,” Reilly said. “It will be a vast improvement over the present act, in which the air toxics provision sadly has not proved very effective.”

Environmental organizations endorsed the report’s findings but said that efforts should be redoubled to reduce industrial pollution.

“Industry should be forced to implement stronger controls to prevent the problem rather than have Americans pay for the cure,” said Susan Merrow, president of the Sierra Club. She said that the problem “further underscores the need for Congress to enact and the President to sign into law a comprehensive and strong Clean Air Act immediately.”

Deborah Sheiman, a research specialist with the Natural Resource Defense Council, said the survey should be broadened to cover more sources of commercial pollution than just the manufacturing sector.

“We need to get a handle on pollution caused by waste disposal firms, sewage treatment plants, dry cleaners, tire recyclers and mining and agricultural operations,” Sheiman said.

EPA officials said that as many as a third of all facilities that should be reporting pollution discharges are not doing so. To improve reporting compliance, the agency has filed more than 200 civil complaints against non-reporting firms, issued more than 2,000 notices of non-compliance and proposed penalties exceeding $7 million.

Staff writer Bettina Boxall contributed to this story from Los Angeles.