U.S. Pulp and Paper Mills

This dataset depicts the distribution and summary toxic chemical release information for pulp and paper mills within the United States. This dataset is based on data retrieved from the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) database on 4/2008 by the Conservation Biology Institute (CBI). These data are based on the 2006 EPA reporting year, and do not reflect cumulative toxic release quantities for previous years. Using a series of queries against the TRI database, we compiled information about the locations of pulp and paper mills and quantities of toxic chemical release by various categories. From this information, we calculated the total toxic chemical release, and split this into releases into air, water, land, underground, and offsite categories using an aggregation of the release category recorded by EPA. We also split this release quantity into categories based on whether a chemical was recorded by EPA as a carcinogen, is regulated under the Clean Air Act, is regulated under the EPA 3350 list, or none of the above. For carcinogenic chemicals, we further divided the quantities into releases into air, water, land, underground, and offsite categories. The locations of facilities within this dataset should be considered approximate. Spot-checking of refineries against satellite imagery revealed that the coordinates recorded in this dataset may be off by up to 0.5 miles. However, it was deemed necessary to retain the original coordinate information from the EPA for consistency.