EPA’s Plan to Assess Risk to Fenceline Communities is Flawed, According to ACMA 

A “draft approach” for assessing exposures experienced by plant neighbors that was released by the EPA on January 21, relies on too many defaults and shortcuts to provide useful results, according to comments made by ACMA staff and consultants during a Small Business Administration Roundtable held on February 28. The 2016 amendments to the Toxic Substance Control Act require the EPA to assess the risk to plant neighbors resulting from emission of styrene and the other chemicals to be regulated under the TSCA program. Consultant Rob Haberlein explained during the Roundtable that the EPA’s proposed exposure screening methodology fails to consider factors such as stack height, exhaust flow rate, and topography that can have significant impacts on fenceline exposures. Contact John Schweitzer at jschweitzer@acmanet.org for more information about EPA regulation of composites manufacturing.