Browse all environmental data

plainenviro brings together the environmental records the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency publishes about industry, water, land, and air, and turns them into pages you can actually read. Federal data is authoritative, but it is also scattered across half a dozen separate systems, each with its own codes, file formats, and quirks. This page is the map: it lays out every dataset on the site, explains in plain terms what each one covers, and points you to the right starting point, whether you are checking the plant down the road, the water coming out of your tap, or how your state compares to the rest of the country.

The core of the site is the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI), an annual EPA program under which tens of thousands of industrial facilities must report the toxic chemicals they release into the air, water, and ground. From those filings we build the facility, chemical, and parent-company sections, along with the rankings that show who reports the largest releases. TRI figures are self-reported estimates rather than measured stack emissions, and being listed does not by itself establish a health risk, it documents the reporting record, which is exactly what the guides on this site help you interpret.

Drinking water comes from the Safe Drinking Water Information System (SDWIS), the EPA's national record of public water systems and the health-based violations each one has incurred. Land contamination comes from the Superfund National Priorities List, the roster of the most polluted hazardous-waste sites slated for long-term federal cleanup. Air quality is drawn from the EPA Air Quality System (AQS) monitoring network. Each of these feeds the place-based sections, counties and states, so that no matter where you start, you can pivot to a single environmental profile for the area you care about.

Not sure where to begin? If you have a specific plant in mind, start with industrial facilities or jump to it by first letter in the A-Z strip below. If you care most about your own neighbourhood, start with water quality by place or your state. And if you want the big picture first, the research and rankings sections summarise the national patterns before you drill down.

A word on what these numbers can and cannot tell you, because it matters for reading every page on the site. The Toxics Release Inventory is a reporting record, not a measurement of harm. A facility appears because federal law requires it to disclose the chemicals it manages above certain thresholds, and the pound figures are the company's own good-faith estimates filed on EPA Form R. A large number means a large reported quantity managed or released, it does not, on its own, tell you whether anyone living nearby is being harmed, because that depends on the specific chemical, how it is released, weather, distance, and exposure. Two facilities reporting the same total poundage can carry very different real-world risk. We show the reported record plainly and link the official source so you can verify it; we do not dress estimates up as measured exposure, and the guides walk through how to interpret a release figure responsibly.

Coverage and timing also shape what you will see. TRI covers manufacturing and a defined set of industrial sectors above reporting thresholds, so small shops and many service businesses never appear, absence from the inventory is not proof a place is clean. The most recent reporting year is always a year or more behind the present, because facilities file the prior year's data and the EPA validates it before release. Drinking- water violations under SDWIS reflect what water systems and state agencies have reported to the EPA, and reporting completeness varies from state to state. Superfund status changes slowly, over years of assessment and cleanup. Wherever a date or vintage matters we label it on the page, and our methodology records exactly which dataset edition each section draws on and when it was last refreshed.

Finally, on how the pages fit together. Every facility, chemical, company, water system, county, and state is cross-linked, so you can follow a chemical to the plants that release it, a plant to the company that owns it, or a county to the water systems and Superfund sites within it. That web of connections is the point of pulling scattered federal systems into one place: instead of querying five separate government databases, you start anywhere and follow the trail. Each section also carries its own sources and methodology notes, so you can always trace a number back to the federal file it came from and judge it for yourself. Pick a category below to begin.