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NPR's Poisoned Places series

A localized screen capture of the map NPR put together that plots more than 17,000 sources of air pollution across the country. You can explore both the localized and full U.S. versions of the interactive map in the story below.
(Screen capture: Kelsey Proud, St. Louis Public Radio, Map: NPR)
A localized screen capture of the map NPR put together that plots more than 17,000 sources of air pollution across the country. You can explore both the localized and full U.S. versions of the interactive map in the story below.

What is this?

NPR and the Center for Public Integrity are making public for the first time a watch list of the chronic violators of air pollution rules. The list was created in 2004 to help Washington crack down on long-term violators that states and regional EPA offices had failed to bring into compliance with the Clean Air Act. NPR and CPI are the first media outlets to obtain and publish the list, as NPR's Elizabeth Shogren reported today on Morning Edition.

Below is a localized version of the map NPR put together that plots more than 17,000 sources of air pollution across the country. You can interact with the map by zooming in and out and clicking on each colored dot to learn more. You can view the full searchable map, and learn more about the data, using the link below.

  • NPR's full online page with even more from the Poisoned Places series can be found here.

NPR's instructions on how to explore this map:

To begin exploring how air pollution may affect your community, use this interactive map of more than 17,000 facilities that have emitted hazardous chemicals into the air. Color-coded dots and scores of one to five smoke stacks are based on an EPA method of assessing potential health risk in airborne toxins from a given facility. Higher numbers are linked to higher potential risks to human health. Zoom in to your neighborhood by clicking on the map or use the search box to find the area you're looking for.

view full searchable map

 

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