How does petrochemical pollution put my community at risk?

We all have a right to breathe clean air. But discriminatory zoning practices and unequal protection of environmental laws have placed some communities at greater risk of exposure to toxic petrochemical pollution, threatening their health.

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Mark Mulligan/Environmental Defense Fund

The Petrochemical Air Pollution Map can visualize a community’s health risk from petrochemicals as well as the chemicals and facilities driving that risk.

It also shows community risk from petrochemicals—which are derived from oil and gas and are found in everyday products like plastics, paints and fertilizers—compared to the rest of the country.

Enter your address and tap the map to learn about chemicals driving risk in your neighborhood—and where they come from.

You’ll also see how health risk from chemicals in your neighborhood compares to the rest of the country.

Across the country, where are health risks from petrochemical pollution highest?

The map also shows which parts of the country bear the greatest health risk.

Mark Mulligan/Environmental Defense Fund

From the national view of the map, you can select a particular chemical of concern, like cancer-causing ethylene oxide, and see which parts of the country are at greatest risk from exposure.

Zoom in to see where these risks are highest—like here, in Iberville Parish, Louisiana, home to 30,000 residents, 20+ public parks and five plants that release ethylene oxide.

Petrochemical polluters make for bad neighbors.

Mark Mulligan/Environmental Defense Fund

You can click into a facility to see their reported emissions of air toxics, and you can also see how often they’ve been out of compliance with environmental laws intended to protect our health.

EPA combines facility-reported pollution with emissions data from other sources to estimate pollution. Air quality monitors measure concentrations of what’s actually in the air – and often show more pollution than what’s estimated.

Petrochemical pollution isn’t the only thing that can make our air toxic.

Pollution from cars and trucks, agriculture and other industries also contribute to a community’s risk.

You can toggle on a layer to see a community’s health risks from these additional sources.

You can also view data related to criteria pollutants, like ozone and particulate matter—other pollutants that harm our health and cannot exceed limits set by EPA. Some areas that exceed those limits are also hotspots for petrochemical pollution, further contributing to a community’s overall health risk.

Take me to the map

We’d like to express our gratitude to the following partners whose expertise informed the development of this map: Air Alliance Houston, Bullard Center for Environmental and Climate Justice, Center for International Environmental Law, Earthjustice, Environmental Health Project, Halt the Harm Network, Johns Hopkins University, Micah Six Eight Mission, Rocky Mountain Institute, and West Virginia Rivers Coalition