EPA Requires Natural Gas Processing Facilities to Report to Toxics Release Inventory

(WASHINGTON, November 24, 2021) - Today, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized a rule to add natural gas processing facilities to the scope of the industrial sectors covered by the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI). This rule will provide communities with important information about how toxic chemicals are being managed by these facilities in and near their communities. This information can be especially important to fenceline communities, where releases to water, air or land could be of a greater impact. In total, there are approximately 1.4 million people living within three miles of at least one of the 482 natural gas processing facilities identified, including communities where there are potential environmental justice considerations.

Natural gas processing facilities receive gas from off-site wells, and then further process the gas to meet industrial or pipeline specifications and extract heavier liquid hydrocarbons from the prepared field natural gas.

Prior to this rule, natural gas processing facilities that primarily recover sulfur from natural gas were already covered under TRI. This rule expands such coverage to include all facilities that process natural gas. These facilities collectively deal with at least 21 TRI-listed chemicals, and EPA estimates that at least 321 natural gas processing facilities in the United States and its territories would meet the TRI reporting thresholds for at least one of these chemicals. 

Natural gas processing facilities should begin tracking their releases and other waste management quantities in January 2022 and will submit TRI data beginning in 2023.  

Learn more about the final rule.