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TRI State Data Exchange

April 25, 2007

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Agenda

• TRI State Data Exchange National Overview• TRI State Data Exchange - Michigan • TRI State Data Exchange - Kansas

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Program Overview

– Toxics Release Inventory (TRI)• Section 313 of Emergency Planning and Community Right-

to-Know Act (EPCRA - 1986)• Requires facilities in specific sectors to report their Release

and other Waste Management activities/quantities for approximately 650 Toxic Chemicals

• About 23,500 facilities submitted 90,000 reports in RY 2005• Electronic reporting continues to increase w/ approximately

66% reporting using EPA’s central data exchange for RY2005; only about 4% use paper reporting.

• The statute requires facilities to provide reports to EPA and also to their State DEP

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Historically, Prior to TRI State Data Exchange…

• Facilities have had to file same information twice – once with EPA and once with the State.

• States may not have used electronic systems to manage their data or, if they did use electronic systems, they used precious resources to enter data into their own databases, duplicating EPA’s data entry. – Resulting in States and EPA having duplicative versions of data that

may not be the same.

– Created need for time consuming data reconciliation between States and EPA.

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Now, with the TRI State Data Exchange…

• In participating states, facilities can file once electronically with EPA and the submission automatically goes to the state, saving facilities from having to file twice.

• States can save resources and avoid duplicative data entry and reconciliation by using electronic data– Reduces data entry time, errors, QA process and FTE

– Provides better data

– Allows for redirection of effort from administrative tasks of managing paper to substantive work of pollution prevention, etc.

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• Based on a successful Pilot Program developed for RY2004 by EPA (OIAA/TRIPD and OIC), ECOS, and interested states (Michigan, Indiana, Virginia, and South Carolina)

• EPA sets up the electronic system to push data to states; States set up their own nodes and backend systems to receive and manage data

• States work collaboratively with each other and EPA, sharing ideas, code, etc.; states already in production help bring new states on board

• Individual States and EPA sign an MOA; MOA and testing steps can be conducted simultaneously to speed up process

• For RY2005, States, EPA, and ECOS partnered to expand the program to address TRI all data flows, including paper and magnetic media

How the TRI State Data Exchange Works:

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How the TRI State Data Exchange Works – Technical Aspects:

TRIDatabase

FACILITY

.gov

Internet

Disk

Paper

CDX

TRI-MEDeskTop Mail

RoomKeying

&Loading

Data

State DEP State Exchange Network

TRI-MEWEB

.xmlMY

CDXWeb Service

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Initially Developed TRI State Data Exchange in Two Stages:

Stage 1: TRI-ME Electronic Submissions via CDX are concurrently pushed to participating States

• Reduces burden on facilities by eliminating duplicative reporting in participating states.

Stage 2: Diskette, Paper and First-Time Filer submissions converted to XML or entered in TRIS, converted to XML and then pushed to participating states

• Very popular with states because: – They get a full data set and subsequent corrections the first year they

join.– Eliminates state data entry and reconciliation.

Now that EPA technical development is complete for both Stages, we have combined them to provide seamless data exchange for States new to the exchange

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Current Status: TRI State Data Exchange

2004 Pilot States

A total of 19 states have either joined or are in the process of joining the TRI State Data Exchange

States in production RY05 States in Development

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TRI State Data Exchange – Current status

Stage 1• South Carolina• Minnesota• Oklahoma• Oregon*• DelawareNote: * denotes Stage 2 also in development

In Production All flows (Stage 1 and Stage 2)• Kentucky• Michigan• Washington• Kansas• Colorado• Utah• Indiana• Virginia• Illinois

For Reporting Year 2005, more than 20% of the national data (20,062 reports) went through the TRI State Data Exchange to participating states.

During the Pilot (RY2004), 6664 reports went to participating states.

In development (Stage 1 and Stage 2)OhioWisconsin**New Jersey**MississippiNorth Carolina

Note: ** denotes “all flows” MOA signed

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Next Steps

• Bring new states on board• Continuous process improvement

– Work toward making it faster and easier to bring new states onboard

– Work toward more coordination around platforms to ease sharing code and tools

• State/EPA “Front-end” workgroup set up to continue looking forward to next steps collaboratively

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Questions