The report compares data submitted to US and Canadian federal officials by 21,254 power plants on their releases of toxic chemicals, including carcinogens and neurotoxicants to the air, land and water. Mexican companies are not under the same obligations.

According to data compiled by the Commission for Environmental Cooperation, 46 of the top 50 air polluters in North America were power plants.

"The sector generated 45 percent of the 755,502 tonnes of toxic air releases in 2001, with hydrochloric and sulfuric acids being the chemicals most commonly released from the burning of coal and oil," read a statement on the report.

Power plants "also accounted for 64 percent of all mercury air emissions, mainly from coal combustion."

Between 1998 and 2001 overall pollutant air releases decreased by 18 percent in North America.

However air releases, including smokestack emissions, "continued to account for almost two-thirds of the chemicals released by companies on-site. For electric power plants, the decrease in toxic air releases was half the rate of other sectors over the same time period," the statement report read.

In the United States, three coal-fired power plants -- one in North Carolina, one in Pennsylvania, and one in Georgia -- reported the largest toxic air releases in 2001.

In Canada, one single site, Ontario Power Generation's Nanticoke Generation Station, was found responsible for eight percent of all toxic air emissions.

The CEC, of which all three countries participate, is based in Montreal.

TERRA.WIRE