Don't Waste Arizona, Inc.

Copper Fist

The ASARCO smelter in Hayden was the number six releaser of TRI chemicals and compounds in America and number one in Arizona under the 1994 Toxic Release Inventory. In other years, it is listed as one of the top TRI releasers nationally.

The Toxic Release Inventory is part of the Emergency Planning and Community Right To Know Act (EPCRA). Since 1987, you have had the right to know about the releases of certain toxic substances into the environment because of EPCRA. The following is the compilation of ASARCO's reports of releases of certain toxic chemicals into the air under the Toxic Release Inventory for the years 1991 to 1996. Releases to the land on-site are not shown.

Note the dramatic increases in releases to the air of Lead and Arsenic in 1995 and 1996. More Arsenic was released as fugitive emissions than stack emissions starting in 1992. Also releases into the air of Sulfuric Acid increased suddenly in 1993, and has increased every year since then.

(Stack air releases are from the smokestack. Fugitive air releases are the amounts that get into the air in other ways where there is not just a smokestack.)

Chemicals are added to the Toxic Release Inventory when they are: "known to cause significant adverse acute human health effects at concentration levels that are reasonably likely to exist beyond facility site boundaries as a result of continuous, or frequently recurring, releases." They are also placed on the Toxic Release Inventory when they are: "known to cause cancer or teratogenic effects; serious or irreversible reproductive dysfunctions, neurological disorders, heritable gene mutations, other chronic health effects."

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