Stephen Brittle is the president of Don’t Waste Arizona, Inc., a non-profit environmental organization very involved in issues of emergency planning and response, which now sponsors this site. He has been a member of the Maricopa County LEPC (but does not represent the LEPC in his statements on this website) since the late 1990s, representing a community/environmental organization. His LEPC membership has facilitated his attendance at many emergency planning and response conferences, including several annual meetings of the National Association of SARA Title III Program Officials (NASTTPO), as well as CAMEO/ALOHA training and all other related HAZMAT training. Stephen has been a featured speaker at several emergency planning and response conferences. Stephen also represented community on the Oversight Committee for the B.O.L.D.E.R. Project, and continues to press for a nationwide, standardized, electronic reporting system for this critical facility data. He is joined in this effort by Intel Corporation’s XL facility in Chandler, Arizona, which utilizes electronic reporting of its facility data to the Chandler Fire Department as part of its XL agreement.

In 2002, Steve was selected by the Speaker of the House of the Arizona Legislature to serve on an ad hoc committee on Chemical Fires and Toxic Smoke. The committee recommended changes in state statutes to better coordinate services for protection of the public health during and after a chemical or other toxic fire event and to require hazardous materials training programs to address notification.

Don’t Waste Arizona, Inc.’s successful citizen suit enforcement of EPCRA returned $1.6 million in penalties to the US Treasury, settling or successfully litigating almost 80 EPCRA cases. Stephen remains an advocate for reducing risks to communities from chemical releases and disasters, and actively and successfully lobbied the City of Phoenix, after the 9-11 terrorist attacks, to stop bringing in 90-ton railcars of chlorine to its water and wastewater facilities in a risk-reduction effort.

Stephen was sent by a consortium of law firms to the scene of the Graniteville chlorine disaster to determine the cause of the incident, but the decision to place a review of the Graniteville disaster on the chemicalspill was not funded or requested by the law firms. As a member of an LEPC, Stephen realized that a review of certain issues about the disaster and response would be helpful. Stephen interviewed a number of local people during his time in the Aiken, South Carolina area, and carefully reviewed and compiled the press accounts of local and nearby newspapers in preparing his comments. He also interacted extensively with television news reporters at the command post set up in Aiken, and personally attended several of the press conferences and updates there.