{"id":469,"date":"2011-10-19T01:13:10","date_gmt":"2011-10-19T05:13:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/geog250\/?p=469"},"modified":"2016-01-27T11:59:26","modified_gmt":"2016-01-27T15:59:26","slug":"whats-your-pollution-scorecard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/geog250\/2011\/10\/19\/whats-your-pollution-scorecard\/","title":{"rendered":"What’s Your Pollution Scorecard?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Coal-fired<\/a>Despite the success of national legislation like the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act, pollutants still enter the environment at alarming rates. We can easily identify obvious sources of pollution\u2014sulfur dioxide is bound to be coming out of a coal-fired power plant’s smokestacks\u2014yet often less-obvious sources go unnoticed.<\/p>\n

When pollution from any of these sources enters the environment, the substance likely enters either the air, local ground or surface water, or the soil; some of these substances may remain in these locations for many years. These chemicals have obvious effects: human and environmental health suffer in a variety of ways.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, the landscape of the region and the physical distance from a polluter means that some locations will experience only minimal levels of a pollutant. Wind and other weather patterns could transport a pollutant away from region and toward another; a city-dweller living next door to a factory will inhale many more toxic chemicals than will a rural farmer living kilometers away.<\/p>\n

Luckily (or not, depending on your perspective) there is an online tool to determine which polluters exist in your locality. By visiting Scorecard<\/a>, you can input your home or current zip code and get a list of polluters in your locality, the location of those polluters, how much pollutant they emit, and which pollutants are most prevalent where you live. For instance, I learned a company was emitting lead-based compounds from what I thought was an office building adjacent to the suburban neighborhood where I grew up! You can also see if any Superfund sites exist near you, determine the cleanliness of your local water, and learn what percentage of homes in your area have risk for hazardous levels of lead.<\/p>\n

How many polluters are in your locality? Are you surprised at what you find out? Let us know in the comments!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Despite the success of national legislation like the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act, pollutants still enter the environment at alarming rates. We can easily identify obvious sources of pollution\u2014sulfur dioxide … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1614,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1043,1046,12585,1044,1045],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-469","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-atmosphere","category-biosphere","category-fall-2011","category-hydrosphere","category-lithosphere"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/geog250\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/geog250\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/geog250\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/geog250\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1614"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/geog250\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=469"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/geog250\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/geog250\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/geog250\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/geog250\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}