Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) Program
Urban Communities:
Greater Los Angeles
 TRI facilities in Greater Los Angeles |
Quick Facts for 2010:
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The Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana, CA metropolitan area is also known as the Greater Los Angeles Area. With an estimated population of 12.8 million, it is the second most populous metropolitan area in the United States. It includes Los Angeles and Orange Counties and the principal cities of Los Angeles, Long Beach, Santa Ana, Anaheim, Irvine, Glendale, Pomona, Pasadena, Torrance, Orange, Burbank, Compton, Santa Monica, and Newport Beach. The total land area of the combined statistical area is 4,850 square miles. The Los Angeles area occupies part of a mountain-rimmed basin fronting on the Pacific Ocean. It is bounded by the Santa Monica Mountains to the north and by the San Gabriel Mountains to the east. Owing to this geography, the Los Angeles Basin and the San Fernando Valley can suffer from severe air pollution when atmospheric inversions hold in the emissions from vehicles, ocean vessels, manufacturing, and other sources.
Greater Los Angeles is the nation's second largest industrial and commercial center, after the New York Metropolitan area. The Port of Los Angeles and Port of Long Beach are the center of imports and exports for U.S. trade on the Pacific Coast. According to the Port of Los Angeles, when considered together, the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach comprise the fifth busiest port in the world.
While there is a diversity of manufacturing in the Greater Los Angeles area, there is a significant presence of aerospace industry, which includes the manufacturing of commercial and military aircraft and various space systems. Also significant are the assembly of automobiles and other vehicles, fabrication of metal parts, the making of tires, and an electronics sector that has undergone significant growth over the past decade. The Greater Los Angeles Area also hosts large petroleum refining and petrochemical industries.Petroleum refineries in the Greater Los Angeles metropolitan area had the largest air releases of any TRI sector, with 51% of the total. Almost two-thirds (66%) of the air releases from the petroleum sector were ammonia. One refinery reported over 99% of all surface water discharges in this area mainly as nitrate compounds.
Total on-site disposal or other releases for the Greater Los Angeles metropolitan area decreased by 60% from 2001 to 2010. However, they increased by 4% from 2009 to 2010. Air releases, which represented 76% of all on-site disposal or other releases in 2010, decreased by 63% from 2001 to 2010 and by 12% from 2009 to 2010. Petroleum refineries decreased their air releases by 50% from 2001 to 2010, including a 9% decrease from 2009 to 2010. Surface water discharges decreased by 48% from 2001 to 2010, but they more than tripled from 2009 to 2010, due primarily to one petroleum refinery's increase of over 560 thousand pounds of nitrate compounds. On-site land disposal or other releases also increased by 15% from 2009 to 2010 but showed an overall decrease of 12% from 2001 to 2010.
Top Five Chemicals by Environmental Medium
Greater Los Angeles, 2010
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These charts represent the top five TRI chemicals in pounds released for this urban community, and do not include all chemicals of concern nor the priority or importance of those chemicals within the urban community.