Greens condemn Federal Cuts to National Pollutant Inventory

Friday, 02 February 2001 10:00

The reduction in Federal support for the National Pollutant Inventory (NPI) by over 80% which was quietly announced in last year's Federal budget has disgusted environment groups.

It will strangle public access to industrial pollution information, two peak environment groups, The NSW Nature Conservation Council and the NSW Total Environment Centre, said today
The National Pollutant Inventory has only been running a few years, and has only partially achieved what it set out to do. As originally conceived it was an attempt to address the community's need for a "right to know" system about the nature and levels of pollutants being emitted by industries in their areas.

As of the first of July this year, the Australian NPI will only list some 90 different chemicals as compared to the 600 chemicals compulsorily listed on the equivalent American Toxic Release Inventory. Nevertheless the existing information has been a welcome change from the more usual industrial secrecy.

Now, seemingly after pressure from industry, it seems that the infant system will be allowed to fade away after an 80% cut in Federal funding to NSW from $400 000 to $75 000 per annum, in line with cuts to other states involvement in the program. Even in the NPI's limited early format, it seems to have been too embarrassing for industry to reveal what they were releasing into the environment.

"This is a Federal program, and without a readily accessible and reasonably up-to-date source of information like the NPI, communities will no longer be able to readily identify which industries are having the biggest impacts in their areas. There will be a regressive return to the lengthy and expensive bureaucratic processes of Freedom of Information requests, and scrutinising state licences if they exist at all, to try and find out which industries are polluting the environment with what and how much," said TEC chemicals campaigner Mark Oakwood.

"The lack of commitment by the Federal Government to the NPI also runs the risk of alienating industries and the states to the point where they will no longer contribute data to the NPI, and it can no longer function. This "death by neglect" approach is a cynical way to axe a project with a great deal of potential," commented Kathy Ridge, Executive Officer of the NSW Nature Conservation Council.