Thursday, April 17, 2014

Do you live near a plant with dangerous chemicals?

Exactly one year after the West Fertilizer explosion that killed 14 and injured more than 300, millions of Americans continue to "live near a site that could put them in harm's way if hazardous chemicals leak or catch fire," Jaeah Lee reports for Mother Jones. "The Environmental Protection Agency monitors roughly 12,000 facilities that store one or more of 140 toxic or flammable chemicals that are potentially hazardous to nearby communities. In late 2012, a Congressional Research Service report found that more than 2,500 of these sites estimate that their worst-case scenarios could affect between 10,000 and 1 million people; more than 4,400 estimated that their worst-case scenarios could affect between 1,000 and 9,999 people."

Do you live near one of these sites? (Read more) (Greenpeace map shows chemical sites that put more 100,000 or more people at risk. For a more detailed town-by-town interactive map of sites click here.)

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