BY JOHN HOPKINS
The Cincinnati Enquirer
The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) has launched a new Internet service that will allow residents throughout the country to see chemical pollution sources and hazards in their own communities.
"It's a giant step toward making the facts about local pollution -- and the uncertainties -- easy to get as a local weather report, and as much a part of people's everyday resources," said EDF Executive Director Fed Krupp.
The service, called the EDF Chemical Scorecard -- http://www.scorecard.org -- is free to all users. It includes full information on the health effects of individual polluting chemicals, as well as rankings based on pollution loads and health hazards for 17,000 polluting facilities. It covers 2,000 counties and every state.
The service locates pollution sources in sharp detail on local street maps. Anyone looking at a polluting facility on Scorecard will be able to send free customized letters, by fax, to that facility's key officials.
The service also provides a wealth of other information. Users of the service, for instance, will learn that:
The carcinogen with the highest releases into the environment is dichloromethane and the developmental toxin with the highest releases is toluene.
Eighty-one percent of the chemicals being released to air don't have enough information in the public record to be able to assess their risks to human health.
The top two volume polluting facilities in terms of total releases to the environment are Magnesium Corp. of America in Rowley, Utah and Asarco Inc. in East Helena, Montana.
Scorecard combines scientific, geographic, technical and legal information from more than 150 electronic databases to produce the detailed local reports on toxic chemical pollution. Users can get reports on any 50 states, 2,000 counties, 5,000 zip codes, or 17,000 individual industrial facilities. The information is based on the most current federal pollution data available. Computer-linked maps will allow users to click down to a local street-grid map.
The EDF, a New York-based nonprofit organization, represents 300,000 members. The creation of the Scorecard was funed by part of a $1.8 million grant from The Joyce Foundation of Chicago, by support from the Clarence E. Heller Foundation of San Francisco, and by EDF's national membership.
