Question: How can the public find or make maps of the polluters next door?

marlokeno is asking a question about harvey
Follow this topic

by marlokeno | September 02, 2017 18:45 | #14821


What's a chemical plant neighbor to do?

How can I make or find maps of pollution from public data for hurricanes, disasters, or neighborhood knowledge?

How have Public Lab people found out risks in their neighborhood and gotten pollution data?

I suggest a wiki, pollution mapping for beginners.

After reading the last open call notes plus the news last week, I wondered- How can anybody find out pollution threats near them?

How can anyone near a chemical plant find out what they're breathing?

I began looking at the EPA's TRI, Toxic Releases Inventory, and started searching by zip codes in Harris County, TX. After a fruitless search and creeping headache, I don't know yet.

The Coast Guard/NRDC gives info about spills in the water, the EPA and state department of enviro. quality have records of toxics released to the air, but how to know of threats like organic peroxides or every day pollution in the neighborhood?

What are the best sources of data, and how do we get the data out of these sources?

"'Your eyes start itching'/Pollution soars in Houston after chemical industry leaks."- headline from the guardian.com today, September 2,' 17. In the article, Air Alliance Houston is quoted as saying, "Communities in close proximity to these facilities will get the worst of it,..." link text



3 Comments

Hi Mary! Good questions and you mentioned a number of resources I would have suggested as starting places well. Maybe a few more for your list could be EJScreen (https://www.epa.gov/ejscreen) and SkyTruth Alerts (http://alerts.skytruth.org/) "SkyTruth Alerts delivers real-time updates about environmental incidents in your backyard"

Reply to this comment...


This is relatively close to your question, or at least related!

https://publiclab.org/questions/warren/02-01-2018/is-there-a-way-to-view-epa-s-toxics-release-inventory-on-a-map-or-by-location

And @sagarpreet is working on how to display these maps as layers in a combined map here: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2/issues/2486

Just linking these together!

Reply to this comment...


Hi ! So i have been working on map oriented library trying to solve the above problem . I have added some of the layers mentioned here . Do check it out here : https://publiclab.org/notes/sagarpreet/06-06-2018/leaflet-environmental-layer-library Some layers like Odor Report Layer , we can report the data ourselves and it would be visible on the map .

And it would be great if you can give some feedbacks too . Thanks .

Reply to this comment...


Log in to comment