February 2004
ONLINE AIR POLLUTION DATABASES: NON-GOVERNMENTAL
DATABASES
Two
non-profit organizations have developed excellent web sites
to provide activist oriented access to the enormous amount
of federal data. In many cases, the same data can be drawn
from EPA sources (described below), but the advantages of
relying on these are the user-friendliness of the interface
and the access to many databases on one website.
One caveat is that these databases sometimes
contain less recent data than governmental sources. The
date of update, however, is usually noted in the search
results.
Environmental
Defense Scorecard (http://www.scorecard.org)
Scorecard uses more than 400 scientific and governmental
databases to generate profiles of local environmental quality
and toxic chemicals. For air pollution, it combines all
of EPA's major databases (see above for details).
The primary advantages of using Scorecard
over EPA's sites are:
• Information
on health effects of individual pollutants.
• Rankings
that show how your community compares to other communities
around the country.
Environmental Defense is a large national
environmental organization, representing more than 300,000
members.
Right-to-Know
Network (RTKNET) Databases (http://www.rtk.net)
The Right to Know Network (RTKNET), run by the non-profit
OMB Watch, provides free access to government information
on toxic releases, toxic spills, Risk Management Plans,
housing, superfund sites and other environmental results
of manufacturing/industry. You can search by company, industry
or geographic area. Databases go back a number of years.
On the homepage, click DATABASES to the left of the screen
to see all the databases available. A MASTER search will
search all of the databases simultaneously by geographic
area, facility or industry.
RTK NET was started in 1989 in support
of the Emergency Planning and Community Right to Know Act
(EPCRA), which mandated public access to the Toxic Release
Inventory. Note the date of last update to the database
usually noted on the top of the results page - since the
RTK Net databases draw from copies of EPA databases, not
all data may be as up-to-date as otherwise available directly
through EPA.
