WASHINGTON - (KRT) - The amount of toxic pollutants in America's air, water and land jumped 5 percent in 2002 - the highest increase since the federal government started keeping track of toxins in 1988, the Environmental Protection Agency said Tuesday. America's industries spewed 4.79 billion pounds of poisonous substances into the environment in 2002. It was only the second time that this key environmental indicator has increased since the EPA started the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI), which allows people to identify about 650 chemicals that are emitted in their neighborhoods.
Mercury and lead - which can harm the developing minds and nervous systems of children - increased by 10 percent and 3 percent, respectively, while another big-name toxin, dioxin, dropped 5 percent.
The increase prompted a former top Republican environmental official to describe the latest figures as a disturbing change in what had been an almost continuous downward trend. "Mercury and lead are worrisome toxics," said William Reilly, the EPA administrator for the first President Bush. "The whole point of TRI is to alert us to hot spots and problems with particular pernicious toxics. It's not good news."
Electric power plants - mostly coal-fired ones - increased their toxic emissions by 3.5 percent and now are responsible for 23 percent of the nation's toxins, the EPA said. Its count of pollutants from military bases, nuclear waste disposal sites and other federal facilities showed toxic emissions from those sources rose by 9 percent. Kim Nelson, the EPA's chief information officer, said problems at copper and gold mines and other unusual events caused the increase. The only other time the EPA's tally of toxic emissions increased was in 1996-1997 when emissions rose by 2.2 percent.
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