Bookmark this site - how healthy is your neighborhood???

[City of Mills]

~ Originally posted in the lounge, posted here for additional comments ~

http://www.scorecard.org

For those who haven't seen this site, you may find it useful to guage how healthy (or not) your neighborhood is. I found out that I have five (!) Superfund sites in my county, which falls in the top 10% of polluted counties in the US. It's amazing that everyone doesn't have cancer and birth defects.

I found the site while doing research about a superfund site in my own neighborhood. It turns out that the site was a former chemical reprocessing plant which went out of business after years of epa violations and actions. When they left, they abandoned over 30,000 corroding drums of various hazardous chemicals, as well as several railroad tanker cars and underground storage tanks. In all, over a million gallons of hazardous chemicals. The site has been capped, and a groundwater treatment plant installed. Current estimates of the time of treatment for the groundwater is well over 30 years! And this is several hundred feet away from residential neighborhoods!

Anyways, I find it DISGUSTING how companies are allowed to pollute the air and ground in areas where thousands of people live and work every day. My wife developed asthma in the year that we lived near the site. I also learned, from this website, that the superfund I described above is not the worst site in my immediate area.

SCARY STUFF :wow:

[johncoby2]

1. Imagine that. My county in Texas is in the top 10%

of the worst polluted counties in the country. Harris County, Texas. 77062 zip. Houston area.

[Not_Giving_Up]

4. I'm in Brazoria County...and we're top 10% too

No wonder I can't quit wheezing!

Edited to add:

I like that they give you the contact info for the polluters as well as legislators. I've seen other sites that give you the pollution info, but don't tell you where it's coming from or who to call. I can't do it from work, but there will be e-mails flying from my home computer tonight!

[LynzM]

2. Hrm, we do mediocre

In 2002, this county ranked among the dirtier 40% of all counties in the U.S. in terms of noncancer risk score (air and water releases).

Lead Hazards
3 percent of houses in WINDHAM County have a high risk of lead hazards.

Worst Toxic Waste Sites (Superfund Sites)
In 2004, this county ranked among the cleanest/best 20% of all counties in the U.S. in terms of the number of designated Superfund sites.
1 Superfund sites in WINDHAM County caused contamination of drinking water sources

[flygal]

3. Thank you - I was so caught up in worrying about the war, economy,

and basic freedoms being eroded - I kind of forgot about the environment **slitting wrists**

[Freebird12004]

5. Oh No !

My county is rated as being among the "dirtier 40%" ... and We Really Need To "get the lead outta here"

[Not_Giving_Up]

6. At least you're not in the top 10%

That's what having dubya as a governor did for Texas!

[KurtNYC]

7. Manhattan is clustered around 30%

decent air - who knew.

[Political_Junkie]

8. good site, thanks,

I'm forwarding this one.

[qs04]

9. Top 10%

There are a number of refineries in my area and multiple times a year there's some sort of accident that results in mass amounts of air pollutants being dumped into the air (usually sending people living in the area to the hospital). The refineries are then hit with a fine of a few thousand dollars. Gee, what an incentive to prevent accidents. Oh! And we have some of the highest gas prices in the nation despite having refineries right in our backyard.

Edited to change headline. I was wrong, there are superfund sites in this area.

[ProfessorGAC]

10. Their Information Is Old

The 3 superfund sites listed for my area are wrong. Only one of them is still a superfund site. The other two have been remediated for years. One is fully remediated and new businesses stand on that land. The other is about 80% remediated (been working on it since abou 1995) and is being converted back into a National Park and Prarie Lands.

I can't vouch for the rest of their data, but seeing these two major errors made me skeptical about their methodology.
The Professor

[nascarblue]

11. Yeah, and thanks to all Dubya, it only gets worse...

How foul is the new law he passed that allows raw sewage to be dumped withut full processing just to save a few bucks that were never saved before? What an a44hole.

[Ladyhawk]

12. We're one of the best.

Worst Toxic Waste Sites (Superfund Sites)
In 2004, this county ranked among the cleanest/best 10% of all counties in the U.S. in terms of the number of designated Superfund sites.

It's because we're rurual. Unfortunately, in this country rural usually = red and we're no exception.

Why are rural people red?