Air Quality Bureau

TOXIC AIR POLLUTANT EMISSIONS FROM "BURN BARRELS" AND MAJOR INDUSTRIAL SOURCES IN NEW MEXICO

HOW DO THEY COMPARE?

Read this first, then download the graphs (Adobe Acrobat format).

These graphs compare the amount of some toxic chemicals emitted by "burn barrels" with the amount emitted to the air by major industrial sources in New Mexico.

TOXIC EMISSIONS FROM MAJOR INDUSTRIAL SOURCES

The values in the graphs for major industrial emissions were obtained from the U.S. E.P.A.'s Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) database. The TRI data do not include all emissions of a given chemical, but they do include emissions from many of the major industries that handle or release toxic chemicals.

To understand what emissions are included in the TRI data, it's important to know that a facility must report emissions to the TRI program if:

1. the facility is in any of these industry sectors: - manufacturing - metal and coal mining - coal- and oil-burning electrical power plants - hazardous waste treatment and disposal facilities - wholesale distributors of chemicals - petroleum refineries, bulk plants, and terminals - solvent recovery services - federal facilities
2. the facility has 10 or more full-time employees, and
3. the facility manufactures, processes, or uses more than a threshold amount of any listed chemical.

Therefore, the emissions reported in the TRI do not include emissions from smaller industrial sources, from very small businesses, from households and consumer products, or from motor vehicles.

The TRI data used in the graph are from the 2000 inventory. The TRI doesn't inventory some types of toxic chemicals emitted by burn barrels. More information on the TRI is available from the E.P.A. Toxics Release Inventory web page.

BURN BARREL EMISSIONS

See details on how we calculated these values.