Terms & Privacy

Purpose: educational and academic use

This site exists as a learning project and a public demonstration of techniques for interpreting federal environmental open-data feeds. It is not a commercial product, not a journalistic outlet of record, and not affiliated with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, any state environmental agency, any university, or any news organization. The code, methodology, and outputs are intended for study, discussion, and civic curiosity — not as an authoritative source.

No guarantee of accuracy

Pollution Analyst aggregates federal pollution data from EPA programs (TRI, GHGRP, SDWIS, EJScreen, AirToxScreen) and CDC PLACES, then normalizes those releases across differing schemas, reporting cadences, and historical vintages. Despite best efforts to map and reconcile these sources faithfully — documented on the methodology page — we make no warranty, express or implied, about the accuracy, completeness, timeliness, or fitness for any particular purpose of any number, chart, signal, anomaly, or piece of prose published on this site.

Source datasets contain known issues: Toxics Release Inventory and Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program quantities are self-reported by facility operators and revised in later vintages; Safe Drinking Water Information System violation backlogs vary by state primacy agency; AirToxScreen ambient concentrations are modeled estimates, not measurements; EJScreen demographic indicators are Census ACS estimates with their own margins of error. Year-over-year changes can reflect reporting changes rather than real-world changes. Our normalization layer can introduce additional error. The site is provided "as is" and "as available," without warranty of any kind.

Data sources

Pollutant, facility, and water-system data is pulled from EPA programs published as bulk CSV, Envirofacts API, or bulk geospatial download — including the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI), the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program (GHGRP), the Safe Drinking Water Information System (SDWIS), EJScreen, AirToxScreen, the Air Quality System (AQS), and Superfund. Health-outcome layers come from CDC PLACES (built on BRFSS). Population and demographic figures come from the U.S. Census Bureau ACS 5-year estimates. Geographic boundaries follow Census TIGER/Line.

All federal datasets used here are public-domain works of the U.S. government under 17 USC §105. Pollution Analyst is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or operated on behalf of EPA, CDC, the Census Bureau, or any other federal or state agency.

Anomalies and statistical signals

Spikes, drops, sustained shifts, streak breaks, and rare-event flags on this site are computed from rolling baselines using the rules described on the methodology page. They are statistical descriptions of patterns in past reported data, not causal claims and not predictions. A flagged anomaly may reflect a real release, a reporting change, a methodology revision in the source dataset, or noise in a small denominator.

Equity overlays use EJScreen demographic and environmental indicators alongside emissions data. The overlay describes co-location of pollution and demographic features; it is not a causal attribution and does not replace formal environmental-justice analysis.

Not for safety, legal, medical, or commercial decisions

Nothing on Pollution Analyst constitutes legal, medical, financial, real-estate, insurance, employment, or public-health advice. The site is an educational and academic exercise intended for learning, research, and civic curiosity. Do not use it as the sole basis for:

• real-estate purchase, rental, or valuation decisions;
• insurance underwriting, pricing, or claims;
• medical diagnosis, treatment, or exposure assessment;
• regulatory enforcement, litigation, or permitting decisions;
• facility siting, operational, or compliance decisions;
• any decision affecting personal safety or legal status.

Reported releases, modeled concentrations, and violation counts describe what was reported to or modeled by federal programs — not the actual exposure, dose, or health risk experienced by any individual or community. Risk depends on pathway, duration, demographics, and many factors not captured in these datasets.

Limitation of liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law, Pollution Analyst and its operators shall not be liable for any direct, indirect, incidental, consequential, special, or exemplary damages arising from use of, or inability to use, this site or its data — including but not limited to errors, omissions, inaccuracies, downtime, or decisions made in reliance on the content.

Privacy

Pollution Analyst does not require accounts and does not collect personally identifiable information from visitors. The underlying federal datasets describe facilities, water systems, Census tracts, counties, and states — not individuals. Facility operators named on the site are legal entities reporting under federal disclosure programs; that information is public by statute.

The site uses standard web-hosting infrastructure (Vercel) which collects aggregated, non-identifying request metadata such as IP address, user-agent, and referrer for the purpose of operating and securing the service. We do not sell, share, or use this metadata for advertising or profiling.

Intellectual property

Original prose, charts, signal definitions, taxonomy, and page layouts on Pollution Analyst are © 2026 Pollution Analyst. Underlying federal data is in the public domain under 17 USC §105 and remains attributable to its publishing agency. You are welcome to cite, quote, and link to the site with attribution; please do not scrape, mirror, or republish full pages without permission.

Changes to these terms

These terms may be updated as the site evolves. Material changes will be reflected in the "Last updated" date at the top of this page. Continued use of the site after changes constitutes acceptance of the revised terms.