With the aim to create greater public awareness about potential toxic threats in Rhode Island’s cities and towns, the nonprofit group Toxics Action Center released a report yesterday called “Toxics in Rhode Island: A town by town profile,” which lists the presence of possible environmental and health risks from former landfills to chemical manufacturers.

Predominantly using information from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management, the report provides a comprehensive inventory of contaminated sites, power plants and leaking underground storage tanks, which the group said will give local communities the information they need to demand tougher regulations and enforcement from responsible parties to clean up harmful chemicals that pose dangers to human health and the environment.

“Rhode Island citizens are often left in the dark when it comes to toxic threats in their communities,” said Toxics Action Center community organizer Amelia Rose, who compiled the document. “This report reveals a legacy of pollution in the state that may surprise most residents.”

The report, which is posted on the group’s Web site, www.toxicsaction.org, also contains maps detailing the prevalence of different types of cancer in the state and the locations of potential dangers such as highly contaminated Superfund sites, textile manufacturers and hazardous waste sites.

The report did not rank the so-called “toxicity” of each city and town or explain the acute risks of individual sites, but it does make recommendations to state and federal governments, such as phasing out the use of persistent toxic chemicals such as those found in lawn pesticides and adequately financing the cleanup of hazardous sites.

The report contained no surprises to the DEM, said DEM Director W. Michael Sullivan, but he added that the report is a good public information document.

“There is nothing that is new news to us [and] I welcome the public recognition to the problems that we see daily,” Sullivan said.

Since the report is more of a potential toxics inventory than a detailed analysis, Sullivan pledged that the DEM will answer the public’s questions about any environmental dangers that may exist in their communities.

“I would commit myself and the staff to do a town-by-town meeting, if requested, to make them aware of any risk analysis that we have,” Sullivan said. “We have a desire and willingness to talk to people if they have questions.”

Rose said the report is designed to raise awareness among the public and serve as an organizational tool for communities that want to learn more about environmental dangers and take action.

“I think the report is the beginning of the process of understanding the toxic hazards in their communities,” she said. “People know a lot about Tiverton and the Central Landfill, but there are a lot of other sites that are not highly publicized. This is the impetus for people to start the process of questioning and start investigating on their own.”

The General Assembly will take action on one front of the battle, by proposing an increase of daily fines for polluters that have left communities contaminated and have not cleaned them up, Rose said.

The current fine of $1,000 will be upped to $25,000 for every day that the abatement is delayed.

Kim Boekelheide, director of the Brown Superfund Research Group, said that is it very difficult to link environmental pollutants to health problems, but outlining where potential sources are located is a good start.

“They are siting potential sources but they do not appear to have data on the level of the exposures,” Boekelheide said. “It’s a lot of work to connect the dots.”

ngarcia@projo.com