RESOURCES FOR YOU

There are quite a few organizations and websites you can get information about hazards near you. We try to offer links to as many as we can after checking them ourselves. You always need to verify the information you see on your own especially if it is from a government website.

There are quite a few places on the internet which have a wealth of information in one place. Some deal with one subject such as where a specific hazard is located in areas across the country. Others allow you to check on any company in the country which reports its emissions and view what they submitted to the government.

All these sites were working for us at the time we released the book. The Trump Administration has taken down some sites such as Toxtown  https://toxtown.nlm.nih.gov/   which offered comprehensive information of hazardous emissions in your communities. The government apparently did not want the public to have easy access to learn this information.

There are many other sites available that are a big help in doing searches. If you find sites we do not list, please let us know and we will add them to this list for others.

ENERGY JUSTICE NETWORK ​

This site helps track polluting power plants and helps link you to other people involved in opposing them. There are quite a few great search tools to see where places are located. It is easy to sign up and register but you can use most of the features even if you do not.

epa environmental map

My environment by the EPA lets you take a close look into the health of the community and neighborhood you live in. It has information on air quality, pollution, hazardous waste sites and other information. As always, we take the information they give and look at it as a piece of the overall picture.

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY

This link takes you to the EPA Toxic Release Inventory. Using the tool you can enter an address and see what facilities are in the area that report their toxic releases. This search tool is not the most user friendly we have seen but with a little playing around in it, you should easily be able to do some basic searches. Keep in mind the only companies required to report to the EPA are those that have to meet minimum thresholds for hazardous waste production. Using this tool you can set a radius to search and easily see the exact location of any facilities reporting and then by searching for the specific company, see what the emissions of each chemical reported are.

Arc gis maps

This link shows the locations where the wastes from Pennsylvania gas and oil wells are disposed of. It includes fracking wastes as well. It is not just Pennsylvania being used as a disposal area but many other states as well. Click on the map to load it. The loading is a little slow so give it a moment.

EWG's TAP WATER DATABASE

This database shows the results of water analysis for thousands of public water supplies across the country. It is simple to use and navigate. Make certain you have the correct name of the company supplying water to your residence and many companies own other ones and the specific name used may be different than on your bills.

Nuclear Reactor Maps

One of the easiest ways to see where the nuclear power plants are located and see how close you would be to them.

Cancer-causing chemicals in the drinking water

This list is just a piece of what is currently known. Almost weekly there are more bases and locations being discovered with contamination in the water. We have no reason to believe this will eventually be every single site in the nation.

TOXICSITES

A website which shows over 1,200 of the worst hazardous waste sites in the country. Get information on the locations, what is in the waste site and what is being done with it. This website has a team of great people who put it together including environmental activist Lois Gibbs from Love Canal, New York.

epa superfund sites

This is a direct link to the EPA and has a fairly easy to use located tool. Put in an address and it will search your area bringing up the places in the Superfund list. Keep in mind that the list of Superfund sites frequently changes. There are always additions and deletions according to changes in the existing status of a current site or, a new site contaminated enough to qualify and be added. This is a very good tool meant to be used as part of your search but is certainly not comprehensive and final.

epa superfund sites map

This is a link to a map that shows what is nearby based on the EPA information. It is a good addition to the link above. This will give you an overall view of the area.

epa detailed facility report

One of our favorite search tools from the EPA. Just type in an area and up pops all the information on polluters and issues in the area you select. You can also put in a specific facility and it will bring up violations that occurred at the location. A very useful website for digging deeper into an area and specific company.

earth justice

A map of the United States showing where hundreds of locations contaminated with coal ash. It also has excellent information on the contamination itself and the extent of it. A truly helpful look at the scope of the coal ash contamination across the country.

ecology.wa

This is an absolutely fantastic website the Department of Ecology in Washington State developed and has available for the public to use. The department offers up over 13,000 sites across the state which are considered contaminated. They run from underground tanks with gasoline leaks at service stations all the way up to the most toxic sites in the state. What really impresses us is they also offer information on orchards which are a serious threat to people finding themselves in homes unscrupulous developers built on top of old contaminated orchards still poisoned from years ago but never divulged to the buyers. If every state built a website like this it would help millions of people.

goodjobs first

This is one of my favorite websites to review companies on. It list the violations the company has committed and the fines it received. You can see what the violation was, the location if the company has multiple ones and other interesting information.

npms

A government website mapping the nationwide network of pipelines crossing the country. There is an access level for government only and a public access level. The website is a little finicky at times but try another browser if the one you are using isn’t responding well. There is good information here but being a government site they limit your access to some information they consider a classified level.

threat maps

The website compiled information from a number of other sites showing threat levels of exposure to chemicals from various facilities and compressors. There is more information if you look deeper into any of the specific sites or areas you pull up. A decent tool to use to see the size of the radius around industrial facilities that are impacted.

frack tracker

Fractracker shows not only where fracking is taking place in individual states across the country but also has resources for gas and oil pipeline networks, francs and mines, accident tracking and a few other really good search tools.

antenna search

A super useful tool for finding where almost all the cell towers are located in your area. The site is frequently updated with the latest approved sites to keep it accurate. Between this site and watching your local board meetings for any proposed locations, you should be fairly well covered.

Mother jones

The website lists through a map interface companies which are considered a risk based on the chemicals they handle. There are many more of these industrial facilities which never make the list as they go unreported however, this is a decent starting point for the worst of the group.

epa

This site allows you to search for hazardous waste sites supposedly cleaned up in your community. It has information about the site, the progress of the cleanup and current status.

esho

This site is a portal that connects you to a range of resources from federal agencies to state environmental agencies. There are other links to get information on a variety of subjects. We like this site and use it frequently.

ewg.org

This site from the Environmental Working Group shows the location of over 2,300 places contaminated with PFAS chemicals. Some are military installation, public water supplies or communities.

Menu