Bad news travels fast when it comes to chemical hazards; good news travels slow. I think we're going to learn that lesson again in the coming months. The Chemical Safety Information, Site Security and Fuels Regulatory Relief Act passed in August, 1999, requires all facilities that submitted to the EPA a Risk Management Plan for a Program 2 or 3 process to announce and hold a public meeting by February 1, 2000, to discuss their plan.

The discussion must include information about the worst-case release scenario for regulated chemicals and the off-site consequence analysis. It's going to be a communications challenge, given how the public, media, and regulators respond to information about chemical hazards. Here are two recent examples: