Environmental Chemical Information System (ECIS)

THE ECIS NEWS	March 2008

This issue of The ECIS News is coming to you from ecissupport@nisc.com. Comments, questions, concerns, etc., should be directed to that address.

[Format problems? If the format of this newsletter goes doesn't suit your E-mail reader, try taking a look at the HTML version of the newsletter in The ECIS News archive. You can reach it through http://www.nisc.com/cis/.]


UPDATES

The following ECIS databases were updated in March -- AQUIRE, CERCLIS, ICIS, IRIS, New Jersey Hazardous Substance Fact Sheets, OBSERVATIONS, RCRIS, RTECS Ž, and TSCAINV. These updates are discussed in alphabetical order in the following paragraphs.

AQUIRE:

The number of records in this database increased from around 232,000 to around 247,000 in March. To find only those records added or updated since the last update, enter ">20051004" in the Add/Alter Date box toward the bottom of the search screen. The latest Add/Alter Date now in the system is from September 7, 2007. The number of sources cited in the database increased from 15,398 to 16,816; the number of chemicals covered increased from 7,383 to 7,431; the number of species covered increased from 4,256 to 4,550.

CERCLIS (Superfund Sites):

The number of sites/records in the CERCLIS database increased from 46,804 to 47326. The number of records that include list of PRPs (Potentially Responsible Parties) is now 3,371. We should note that the difficulty we had in securing data for this database is one of the major reasons that the current update to ECIS could not be done sooner. The process we had to go through did result in restoration of alias names to the NFRAP records, so that's a positive development. However, it remains to be seen how lasting will be EPA's momentary commitment to distribution of full sets of CERCLIS/NFRAP/PRP data. It's difficult to say whether the difficulty we encountered in securing CERCLIS data resulted from policy or ineptitude, but we were not pleased, and we will say it again if we encounter the same problems in future. We should mention that a limited set of ROD documents -- Records of Decision -- were added to CERCLIS in the course of this update. The coverage is far from complete currently, but we will expand it as time goes on. Search for the EPA Identifier VTD980520118 if you want to see an example of how this looks. (Note that you cannot at present search for records having RODs attached to them; links to available RODs will simply turn up whenever you do a search that hits a CERCLIS record that has one or more ROD documents attached to it.) (We're a little late in taking note of this, but there was a good summary article about Superfund in the Chemical & Engineering News of November 12, 2007 -- pages 41-44. It's worth looking up if you keep track of the chronic arguing that goes on about this ugly stepchild program. Curiously, in light of our adding the ROD data noted above, the article focused in large part on the question of whether Superfund is adequately funded, and whether there has been a slowdown in Superfund activity during the Bush Administration. When we looked at ROD data in conjunction with a view toward adding it to CERCLIS, we found that the number of ROD-related actions -- the preparation of RODs or ROD amendments -- does appear to have declined significantly since the Clinton Administration left office. The number of ROD- related actions during each of the eight Clinton years exceeded the average number of ROD-related actions over the 22 years from 1984-2006, whereas only one of the Bush years exceeded that 22-year average. Furthermore, the number of ROD-related actions in the highest Bush year (2006) was lower than the number of ROD-related actions in the lowest Clinton year. Of course, writing a ROD is not doing a cleanup, and everything is affected by the fiscal problems by which Superfund has been beset since the Superfund tax expired in 1995 and the trust fund ran dry in 2002. Still, the numbers are certainly suggestive.)

ICIS (Integrated Compliance Information System -- formerly DOCKET):

This database contains records of administrative and judicial actions for alleged violations of environmental laws and regulations. There are now 73,762 records of administrative proceedings in the database and 9,353 records of formal judicial proceedings.

IRIS:

Several records were updated in this EPA database, and links to some additional ancillary material were added. The total number of substance monographs is 544.

New Jersey Hazardous Substance Factsheets:

This excellent database of MSDS-like documents now covers 1,718 individual substances.

OBSERVATIONS:

This database combines the former ISHOW, ENVIROFATE, and DATALOG databases, all of which dealt with basic physical/chemical processes. The process of combining the three source databases in a meaningful way involves deleting duplicative records, converting bibliographic-reference-only records to data-bearing records, updating reference sources where appropriate, adding full-text links where possible, and adding entirely new records where possible. All of these activities are embodied in the newly updated version of the database, and they will continue for the foreseeable future.

RCRIS (RCRAInfo):

This database of RCRA-licensed sites/facilities increased to some 695,000 records, each one dealing with a single site or facility.

RTECS Ž:

This standard toxicology database now includes more than 167,200 records, each one dealing with one chemical substance. The number of records increased by about 1,600 in the course of this update. (NOTE: We have had a detailed statistical analysis of the contents of RTECSŽ posted on one of our web pages. It dates from June, 2007, so it's slightly behind-the-times with regard to the actual online database. However, it still provides a THOROUGH orientation on the kinds of coverage that the database provides. Check out http://www.nisc.com/cis/RTECS_Analysis_June_2007.pdf if you're interested. [You can also click through to it from the ECIS product description page on our corporate home page.])

TSCAINV:

The TSCAINV database of chemicals listed on the public portion of EPA's TSCA Inventory -- the list of chemicals approved for use in industry and commerce in the US -- now includes the 65,801 records drawn from the "Second issue, 2007" of the database.
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