Interactive Audiovisual Mapping: BTEX Emissions from NPRI Reporting Facilities in Montreal

Abstract

The Canadian Environmental Protection Act (CEPA, 1999) mandates the federal government to assess the potential for adverse effects on human health and the envi ronment from toxic emissions. Under CEPA, Environment Canada maintains a list of priority substances that are likely to be released into the environment in quanti ties or at concentrations sufficient that they may create “an immediate or long-term harmful effect on the environment or its biological diversity”; that they “may con stitute a danger to the environment on which life depends”; or they “may constitute a danger in Canada to human life or health” (ibid., Part 5, Sect. 64). Therefore, En vironment Canada (2010c) has established the National Pollutant Release Inventory (NPRI), one focus of which is the collection of annual reports of toxic substance re leases by facilities operating in Canada that: a) manufacture, process, or otherwise use one or more of the substances listed under CEPA beyond established thresh olds, or b) meet certain facility guidelines such as using an emission stack taller than a specified threshold.1 These reports, in the form of annual emission totals for each substance from each qualifying facility, are publicly available (ibid.) and in clude data for a range of compounds. During 2008, facility owners were required to provide reports to the NPRI concerning the use or release of 347 substances or groups of substances, subject to the established reporting guidelines (Environment Canada, 2010a). Included in the list of substances for which reports are required are the volatile organic compounds (VOC) benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and the xy lene isomers, collectively referred to as BTEX in this chapter and elsewhere. These VOCs are known to pose potential risks for human health, as will be discussed be low.