HAZARDSCAPES: Toxic & Nuclear Risks In Your Backyard?

We have created this page so that you can learn more about the potential risks you and your family may face from toxic chemical accidents and releases and nuclear waste in your community where you live, work and play. These resources are organized into 3 categories: Air Quality Forecasts, Pollution, Chemical Accidents and Nuclear Waste.

Air Quality Forecast Finder

• Where I Live - EPA Air Quality Forecasts (Ozone). Click here for forecasts.

• Today and Tomorrow's Air Quality Forecasts - EPA's updated AirNow website provides forecasts and easy-to-understand maps updated on an hourly basis on ozone air quality information from monitors in 39 states and Washington, D.C. (Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin). Within the next month, Idaho, New Mexico and Colorado are expected to be added. The expanded website will also include same day and next day forecasts for over 160 cities across the country.

  These forecasts are based on EPA's Air Quality Index (AQI), which uses a color-coding system to rate air quality as good (green), moderate (yellow), unhealthy for sensitive groups (orange), unhealthy (red), very unhealthy (purple) or hazardous (maroon); the AQI also provides cautionary health statements for each rating. EPA shares the AQI forecasts for all major cities in the United States with weather service providers who make the information available to newspapers, television and radio.

  Smog is created by a chemical reaction between nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds in the presence of sunlight. When inhaled - even at very low levels - smog can cause acute respiratory problems, aggravate asthma, reduce lung capacity, inflame lung tissue and impair the body's immune system. Click here for forecasts.

Pollution Finder

• RTK Net is a wonderful resource. Use your zipcode and learn more about the following risks: toxic release, superfund, toxic spills and releases, chemical studies, EPA regulated facilities, surface water pollution permits, chemical accidents by clicking here and choosing a database.

  You can do a master search of all the above databases by clicking here.

• Click here to enter your zipcode in the Chemical Scorecard and find out more about the pollutants in your neighborhood and who is responsible for them.

• Click here to find out more about specific chemicals.

• RTK Net provides access to EPA Risk Management Plan executive summaries. You can use these to help determine your risk to chemical accident. Click here and choose a state then select the summaries you want and RTK Net will email them to you.

• EPA's Vulnerable Zone Indicator System (VZIS) allows you to find out if an address of interest to you - your home, place of work, or child's school - could be affected by a chemical accident. You can use the VZIS to determine whether the address may be in the vulnerable zone of a facility that submitted a Risk Management Plan (RMP). Click here and fill out the form and EPA will email you the results.

• To learn more about chemical accidents that may have recently occurred in your backyard, check the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board's Chemical Incident Reports Center.

• Nuclear route maps. The Mapscience Center is a project of the Environmental Working Group. Click here for maps (note that the maps may take a long time to appear).

• The Atomic Atlas Project is a web-based tool designed to foster an understanding of the dangers posed to your families, homes and communities by the transport of high-level radioactive waste. The Atomic Atlas allows you to identify the routes that commercial radioactive waste may travel and to locate the schools,colleges and hospitals along those routes. Click here for maps.

Thanks and Best Regards,

Didn't find what you are looking for? We've been online since 1996 and have created 1000's of pages. Search below and you may find just what you are looking for.

Michael R. Meuser
Data Research & GIS Specialist

MapCruzin.com is an independent firm specializing in GIS project development and data research. We created the first U.S. based interactive toxic chemical facility maps on the internet in 1996 and we have been online ever since. Learn more about us and our services.

Have a project in mind? If you have data, GIS project or custom shapefile needs contact Mike.

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