The mission of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is to protect human health and to safeguard the natural environment--air, water, and land--upon which life depends. Following this mission, the Agency has implemented a variety of laws and programs that require and encourage the safe use and management of toxic chemicals. Many of these programs focus on understanding the consequences of releasing chemicals to the air, land, and water and working to reduce those releases when they pose too great a risk (see Glossary for definition of risk in this Reference Library). This manual describes the programs and technical tools that EPA uses to evaluate and address chemicals that are released to the air from many different types of sources, and which have the potential to harm people and the environment. The potential impacts of chemicals released to the air depend on a number of factors, including the quantity of chemicals in the air, how the chemicals move and transform in the environment, the length of time people or the environment is exposed, and the toxic nature of the chemicals.

"EPA-453-K-04-001A"--V.1 "EPA-453-K-04-001B"--V.2 "April 2004." "Prepared for: Nona Smoke ... Rachael Schwartz ... Bruce Moore. Includes bibliographical references.

v. 1 Technical resource manual.-- v. 2 Facility-specific assessment.-- v. 3 Community-level assessment.