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Ki Mae Heussner has pulled together a beautiful chart breaking down chemical pollution levels across Chicago by zipcode.
Unsurprisingly, according to her data, gathered from the E.P.A., the zipcodes around Gary aren't faring so well...
I'm only posting a thumbnail of Heussner's map so you'll head on over to the full story on Medill Reports and see it in its full glory.
One of the cool things about the internet is that its made information like this available to anyone interested in it. Heussner reports that her info came from the EPA's TRI Explorer (http://www.epa.gov/tri) and Envirofacts (http://www.epa.gov/enviro).
Organizing the data into a chart like this, however, is where value can be added beyond the raw data.
According to the story, she'll be exploring Chicago's six most polluted neighborhoods over the next few days. Sounds like something to watch out for.
More Stories about Chicago Pollution:
"The environment is a tough sell in poor neighborhoods" - 01-17-08
"Illinois Environmental Protection Agency invites public to weigh in on water quality" - 01-25-08
Paddling Upstream: Plan to clean Chicago river resurfaces - 01-30-08
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Comments
Wed, 05/30/2007 - 12:30
Man, I feel bad for those far South siders...
Thu, 07/12/2007 - 10:25
[...] But, I didn’t want to take a “everyone in the world is evil” approach to life, so I popped over there to check the site’s legitimacy, and was surprised to find that the site seemed to have a good collection of interesting bits, including a fun little bit about a 7-11 up in Evanston that was redressed as a Kwik-E-Mart as a Simpsons Movie promotion. (I had heard about this, but had no idea there were any of those in Illinois.) [...]
Thu, 03/20/2008 - 03:17
[...] The West Side Chicago neighborhood of Pilsen has lead in the soil, a coal plant grandfathered past the Clean Air Act, an EPA-fined smelting plant, a sanitary canal and is bound on three sides by smog-producing interstates and freight rail.Dorian Breuer of the Pilsen Environmental Rights and Reform Organization said it’s hard to get people to care about Chicago pollution. [...]
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