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**"Understanding PRTR Systems: A Guide to Environmental Transparency"**

Explore the significance and core elements of Pollutant Release and Transfer Registers (PRTR) in environmental management. Learn about the Aarhus Convention pillars and the future PRTR Protocol. Discover the role of NGOs in promoting precise reporting and transparency in PRTRs. Unravel controversies and key points surrounding chemical-specific reporting in PRTRs.

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**"Understanding PRTR Systems: A Guide to Environmental Transparency"**

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  1. Part 2 – PRTR Systems Electronic Tools Side Event UNECE Aarhus Convention 1st Meeting of the Parties Lucca, Italy October 21-23, 2002

  2. PRTR systems • PRTR = Pollutant Release and Transfer Register • What are PRTRs? • Why are they important? • US Toxics Release Inventory (http://www.epa.gov/tri/) • Future Aarhus Convention PRTR Protocol

  3. Aarhus Convention represents the 3 pillars of Principle 10 of the Rio Declaration On Environment and Development(1992) • Access to information • Public participation • Access to justice ...the 4th pillar – Chemical Right to Know – was originally left out of the Convention

  4. Aarhus Convention Participating UNECE Countries°As of August 2001(°excluding Iceland, Greenland and North America) http://mole.utsa.edu/~matserv/iheal/mappage.html

  5. 2000-2001: UN ECE COP decides to negotiate binding PRTR Instrument • As a free-standing instrument open to non-Aarhus Convention participants • As a global instrument, open to accession by non ECE countries • USA, Canada and Mexico join PRTR Work Group as observers • Should be ready for signature in Kiev 2003

  6. Core Elements of Aarhus PRTR Protocol • Facility-specific (with respect to point sources) • Pollutant-specific (or waste-specific, as appropriate) • Multi-media (air, land and water) • Include info on transfers

  7. More Core PRTR Elements: • Mandatory reporting on periodic basis • Standarized and timely data, limited reporting thresholds, limited confidentiality • Coherent and user-friendly and publicly accessible, including in electronic form • Be a structured, computerized database or linked databases

  8. IHEAL promotes • Best practices in electronic access, Internet communication, and geographic information systems (GIS) technologies • Internet mapping of Pollutant Release and Transfer Registers (PRTR) • See IHEAL Featured Links & Databases http://www.iheal.org

  9. NGOs also want PRTRs to have: • Precise geographic locations (geo-spatial coordinates) of facilities, to facilitate mapping of pollutant releases & potential health effects • Major diffuse sources of pollution (traffic, agriculture, shipping • Info on on-site transfers and storage

  10. NGOs also want inclusion of: • Water, energy and resource use • Reduction targets, estimates of future releases • Noise, radioactive substances • GMO releases; releases as products

  11. Some major points of controversy: • Chemically-specific reporting of off-site transfers of waste • Step-by-step approach • Number of chemicals to include in 1st step • 2nd step mandatory or voluntary? • Opt-out provision sought by USA • to annual reporting requirement • to greenhouse gas emissions reporting

  12. Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition Eco-Maps Series http://www.svtc.org/ecomaps/svtc_ecomaps/index.html Schools, hospitals and parks shown in relation to chemical sites... Once you have the PRTR data, you could use GIS to produce this sort of map

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