ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, November 14, 1996 TAG: 9611140052
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-4 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: Associated Press
The Environmental Protection Agency acknowledges it lost 200 confidential documents containing sensitive data belonging to chemical companies.
The papers may contain formulas for toxic chemicals or directions for manufacturing chemicals - trade secrets worth millions of dollars to the companies.
The incident ``will be an embarrassment to the agency which could damage our reputation and put into question our ability to handle sensitive information,'' an internal memo obtained by The Associated Press said.
The agency thinks some of the documents were misplaced and others may have been destroyed after EPA finished with them, but their destruction was never recorded. Officials have no evidence they were stolen.
Chemical industry officials want to know why the EPA's procedures for handling the papers weren't more secure.
``This gives us grave concerns about how they manage confidential information,'' said Ralph Engel, president of the Chemical Specialties Manufacturers Association.
The agency generally misplaces a few documents each year, but a recent audit of the department that guards confidential documents at EPA's Washington headquarters and at a few laboratories nationwide found 200 documents collected in 1994 and 1995 are missing.
The agency said the missing documents are troubling, but their disappearance is not a serious security breach.
``More than one-half million of these papers are managed annually by EPA, and about 200 may have been misplaced, most likely within the agency,'' said Lynn Goldman, assistant administrator for prevention, pesticides and toxic substances.
The episode is unfolding at a sensitive time, just as the EPA proposed new right-to-know rules requiring companies to report more information about their chemicals.
``In this climate, any appearance of carelessness will be used in industry's efforts to prevent the collection of use information,'' the EPA internal memo said.
Industry officials say that with even more paper to manage, the agency will have a hard time keeping track of highly sensitive information. EPA says such worries are unfounded because companies won't turn over more secret papers under the new rules.
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