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Washington County's top five

The top five facilities in Washington County with the highest on-site disposal or other chemical releases in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's 2008 Toxic Release Inventory Report are:

American Electric Power's Muskingum River plant - 10.2 million pounds.

Eramet Marietta Inc. - 5.49 million pounds.

American Municipal Power Ohio, Richard H. Gorsuch Plant - 1.4 million pounds.

Kraton Polymers U.S. LLC: 1.51 million pounds.

Globe Metallurgical Inc.: 394,774 pounds.

Source: www.epa.gov/tri

Washington County plants and factories released more than half a million pounds fewer chemicals into the environment in 2008 than the previous year, according to a new U.S. Environmental Protection Agency report.

Data from the Toxic Release Inventory show what's been happening with the individual facilities in recent years, said Eric Fitch, director of environmental science program at Marietta College.

"It makes sense," he said. "We not only had plants doing some cleanup, but we've had plants closing down. We've lost generation of the materials from simply plant operation. Remember, with plants like Eramet, they were actually shutting down generation prior to this year."

Fitch said the trend is likely to be further exacerbated next year when the 2009 TRI report is released, since this year saw many facilities stop production, or at least curtail output due to the economic downturn.

The Toxic Release Inventory is compiled every year by the U.S. EPA and contains detailed information on nearly 650 chemicals and chemical categories that are disposed either through the air, water or land by about 22,000 industrial and federal facilities.

Data found in the report is not necessarily meant as a guide to how polluted or toxic the air, land or water near these facilities are, Fitch said.

"The TRI is a little deceptive because it should be more properly labeled the potential-to-be-released toxic instead of the released toxics because a lot of these are generated and then processed or handled," Fitch said. "What's actually released to the environment is a fraction of what's actually generated because much of it is actually captured or processed or otherwise neutralized on- or off-site."

The decrease in overall releases mostly stems from the top two facilities, American Electric Power's Muskingum River Plant in Beverly and Eramet Marietta on Ohio 7. Many of the other facilities in the top five actually increased their releases, according to historic TRI data.

• American Municipal Power Ohio's Richard H. Gorsuch plant on Ohio 7, released 1.4 million pounds in 2008, which ranked it as the third highest on the TRI list. But in 2007 the company released 1.31 million pounds. Officials with AMP Ohio were unavailable for comment Wednesday.

• Kraton Polymers U.S., LLC, of Belpre, also saw an increase over the previous year's list. In 2008, Kraton released 1.15 million pounds, compared to 1 million in 2007.

• Globe Metallurgical Inc., of Beverly, also saw a slight increase, with 394,000 pounds released in 2008 compared to 324,000 in 2007.

For Washington County, the Beverly AEP plant remains the top disposer of chemicals, with a little more than 10.2 million pounds released. Most of that is released through the air, with about 8.8 million pounds disposed of in that manner.

Still, just like the overall Washington County trend of about 600,000 fewer pounds of chemicals released, AEP's local plant also saw a reduction in chemicals released in 2008 over 2007.

In 2007, the plant released 10.7 million pounds. The 10.2 million pounds released in 2008 is still higher, though, than any other year - besides 2007 - since 1998, according to the EPA data.

"Typically TRI numbers for utilities are a reflection of volume; if we generate less electricity and burn less coal then our numbers will fluctuate year to year," said Melissa McHenry, an AEP spokesperson. "Part of that is likely related to the economic downturn at the end of the year."

Similar trends were also noticed at other top releasers in the county, including Eramet.

In 2008, Eramet released 5.49 million pounds, compared to 5.73 million in 2007.

"That's a correlation with our Furnace 1 project," said Joy Frank-Collins, spokesperson with Eramet. "We rebuilt our Furnace 1 in May 2008, and it certainly decreased the emissions from that furnace dramatically."

Unlike AEP's Muskingum River plant, though, Eramet's releases are drastically down compared to releases over the last 20 years, particularly those releases from 2000-1987, when the company released between 11.8 million and 18.6 million pounds every year.

Frank-Collins said 2009's releases will continue this trend when those figures are released next year.

"The major reason is because of the indefinite idling of the Northside operations, and also due to various environmental projects we hope to begin in 2009," she said.

The top chemicals released from Marietta area plants also continue to stay the same, Fitch noted.

"We're looking at large volumes in terms of generation of ammonia and magnese compounds," he said.