Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (EPCRA) Reporting

NGE works with several international companies that have multiple U.S. facilities that manage their environmental reporting separately, without interaction between facilities. Most of the facilities are of comparable size with similar production processes. NGE began assisting these companies with Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) reporting under the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (EPCRA) on a corporate level. 

During our review of prior TRI reports for each facility location, NGE staff noted that the methods for completing the threshold determinations and calculating releases were very different. In some cases, TRI reportable compounds were overlooked by some facilities, and emission calculations were inconsistent. 

NGE worked with each facility location to determine the following:

1. Were the facilities overlooking common mistakes associated with TRI reporting?
2. Was each facility considering all TRI reportable compounds being manufactured by chemical reaction or the creation of byproducts?
3. Were the facilities considering all categorical TRI compounds?
4. Were there calculation errors or incorrect emission factors utilized when calculating releases?

NGE staff worked to create a consistent methodology for calculating threshold determination and releases for each applicable TRI chemical by collaborating with the Environmental Manager and production staff at each facility location. The calculation methods were included in a comprehensive excel spreadsheet that could be updated annually with the appropriate inputs. The spreadsheets were tailored for each facility to use based on variations in their process while ensuring that the company reports remain consistent.