Ever wonder if being a renter increases your risk of
cancer from hazardous air pollutants? Or whether your income level
correlates to how far you live from a Superfund
site?
Now, by entering your ZIP code into a new
Web site, you can get answers to questions like these, based on
data collected from your neighborhood. Launched by the Oakland,
Calif.-based nonprofit group Environmental Defense, this
fact-filled site compiles information from over 400 scientific and
governmental databases to provide a detailed picture of how factors
such as income, race and education correlate with exposure to
environmental burdens.
University of Texas Law
Professor Gerald Torres believes the site creates “the capacity for
people at the grassroots level to do their own analysis,” whether
they live in rural Montana or the heart of metropolitan Phoenix.
Available in both English and Spanish, the site highlights four
measures of environmental burden: local releases of toxic
chemicals, cancer risks from hazardous air pollutants, and
proximity to Superfund sites and to facilities that spew any of six
common air pollutants.
For more information, go
to www.scorecard.org or contact Environmental Defense at
510/658-8008.
Copyright © 2001 HCN and Laurel Jones
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline All’s fair in smog and waste?.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
