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Part 2 – PRTR Systems

Part 2 – PRTR Systems. Electronic Tools Side Event UNECE Aarhus Convention 1 st Meeting of the Parties Lucca, Italy October 21-23, 2002. PRTR systems. PRTR = Pollutant Release and Transfer Register What are PRTRs? Why are they important? US Toxics Release Inventory

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Part 2 – PRTR Systems

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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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