Federal pollution data — what's actually changing, and who lives next to it
We turn EPA, AQS, AirToxScreen, and CDC PLACES into something a person can actually read. Multi-decade chemical-release histories at the factory, air-monitor readings rolled up to your county, drinking-water violations for your utility, hazardous-air cancer risk where you live — paired with the demographic context for who lives next to it.
Most Polluted, At Every Scale
Pollution data lives at different scales because the questions do. Pick the ranking that matches what you actually want to know — counties, cities, or industrial facilities.
Most Polluted Counties
Top 10 nationally, ranked by PM2.5, lifetime cancer risk (AirToxScreen), TRI air releases, and greenhouse-gas emissions — one table per indicator.
Most Polluted Cities
City-grain rankings on TRI air releases, plus the county-derived measures (PM2.5, AirToxScreen) attached to each city's containing county.
Most Polluting Facilities
Industrial facilities reporting the largest TRI chemical releases — split into total, air, water, and land so you can see who tops each medium.
National TRI Choropleth, County By County
Every published county shaded by its EPA Toxics Release Inventory total — pounds of toxic chemicals released to air, water, and land. Darker counties report more. Counties in states not yet ingested render as “no TRI data”.
Shaded by 2024 TRI reporting-year totals across 50 ingested states. Hover a county for its state summary; click to open the state page.
Four Principles For Federal Pollution Data
EPA's data is rich, public, and underused outside compliance offices. We built this so the analytics-and-narrative layer most people actually need is one URL away.
Trend, Not Totals
TRI volumes are noisy year over year but tell a strong long-arc story. We surface the multi-decade direction, not just last year's number.
Equity in Plain Sight
EPA's EJScreen pairs pollution with population characteristics. We surface those indexes on every entity and county page — they're not buried in a footnote.
Federal-Only Sources
EPA TRI and GHGRP for industrial releases, AQS for criteria air pollutants, AirToxScreen for hazardous-air cancer risk, SDWIS for drinking water, CDC PLACES for community health, Census ACS for demographics. All public-domain, all reproducible.
Methodology Open
Every metric, every threshold, every caveat is on the methodology page. Read the rules; reproduce the numbers.
Three Pollution Trends Worth A Read
Red Dog Operations
Manganese And Manganese Compounds at Red Dog Operations have more than doubled since 2010 (through 2024).
Read the pageCity Of Houston
Long Term 1 Enhanced SWTR health-based violation cited in 2025 (contaminant 0300).
Read the pageEnvironmental Justice Context On Every Pollution Page
We pair every pollution surface with the population context — demographic shares, EPA-style national percentiles per indicator, and EJ disparity scores — so readers can see who lives next to the burden, not just the pounds released.
- PM2.5 (fine particulate)99
- Ozone97
- Diesel particulate87
- Drinking-water non-compliance80
- RMP-facility proximity79
Percentile rank vs all US block groups, population-weighted. 80th and above warrants a closer look.
Federal pollution data, with the analytics layer already done.
Free. No accounts. No tracking. Built on public-domain federal data.