By 2008, more than 50 tons of industrial toxins could disappear from the Roanoke and New River valleys.

The hazardous chemicals won't actually go away. They just won't show up on the Environmental Protection Agency's Toxics Release Inventory anymore.

That inventory was the basis of an Associated Press analysis and a recent Roanoke Times story that showed that Pulaski County's air is the third worst in the state and 67th worst among 3,140 cities and counties across the country. The analysis called Pulaski County's air more than 48 times more hazardous than the national median.

Franklin County was the only community in the New River and Roanoke valleys with a risk lower than the national median. Most of the region had a risk at least twice the median, with Radford showing a risk 25 times the national median and Montgomery County a risk more than 17 times the median. Roanoke's air was nearly seven times more hazardous than the median.

It's unclear how the changes would affect rankings.

The Toxics Release Inventory, created under the federal Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act of 1986, details 650 toxins through a compilation of reports from nearly 24,000 companies nationwide.

The EPA plans to change reporting rules so companies can handle 10 times as much of the toxins before they have to file a detailed report. The current limit is 500 pounds. The proposed limit is 5,000 pounds.

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They just won't have to report how much they used or provide details about how it was used or where it went -- all required information under present rules. Companies that use less than 5,000 pounds of chemicals on the toxics list will file a short form that simply says they used, stored or released the toxin.

Ackerman compared it to using a 1040 EZ tax form rather than a 1040 form.

Bill Hayden, spokesman for Virginia's Department of Environmental Quality, said the EPA's proposed changes would affect the DEQ.

"Generally speaking," Hayden said, "it appears that it would reduce the number of specific chemical reports we get.

"Some information would still come to DEQ. But we would not have the level of detail we do now."

That is the crux of the argument against the rule change that is being made by a dozen states' attorneys general. New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, who earned a national reputation by taking on Wall Street investment banks, is leading the charge.

Spitzer and the other attorneys general say the rule change appeases polluters and hides vital information.

The EPA says it's all about reducing paperwork. The proposed rule will save 165,000 hours of form-filing, according to the agency. That, EPA argues, will encourage companies to use less of these toxic chemicals so they can use the shorter form.

"BEPA's proposal would create incentives to accelerate environmental protection and maintain economic competitiveness by setting a very high environmental bar so that when it comes to the most toxic chemicals, such as lead, mercury, and PCBs, businesses that reduce emissions to the environment from their facilities can reduce red tape and paperwork," EPA press secretary Eryn Witcher wrote in an e-mail Friday.

Tucker Martin, spokesman for Virginia Attorney General Bob McDonnell, said Virginia won't be joining the opposition. Martin said the DEQ doesn't have any problems with the proposed change because it won't cause the loss of any data.

Hayden, the DEQ spokesman who said the change will make less data available, said a vacancy in the DEQ and work on this year's toxics report has kept the agency from commenting on the EPA proposal.

The EPA is also proposing that the annual reports be replaced by a biennial reporting cycle.

That could create a problem for the DEQ, which is required by state law to issue reports on these toxins annually.

Biennial reports will also reduce the bureaucratic burden on business, Kimberly Nelson, the EPA's chief information officer, wrote in a September letter to Congress. The revised reporting schedule would also allow the EPA to improve the quality and clarity of Toxics Release Inventory reports available to the public, she wrote.

Josh Low, conservation organizer with the Virginia Sierra Club, said the changes wouldn't do anything to improve the program.

"The TRI is a vital program that allows us to know who pollutes and how much they pollute," Low said. "These changes would gut the program."

Reducing the amount and frequency of information available to citizens infringes on people's right to know what's in the air they breathe, Low said.

The EPA is reviewing comments about the proposed change in reporting thresholds, the final step before implementation. That will take at least six months, according to Ackerman. The biennial reporting proposal is in the earliest stages of the process. The EPA has simply announced its intention to consider the change.

Both could be in place for the 2008 reporting cycle.