Resource Links: Information on Environmental Health and Justice Threats in Your Community

GreenFaith suggests the following websites to help you identify the environmental health threats in communities in New Jersey and beyond.

Scorecard

Scorecard, produced by Environmental Defense, provides free, easily accessible environmental information. Simply type in a zip code to learn about environmental issues in your county. Scorecard ranks and compares pollution in counties across the US . Scorecard also profiles 6,800 chemicals, making it easy to find out where they are used and how hazardous they are.

Once you learn about an environmental problem, Scorecard enables you to take action - you can fax a polluting company or contact your elected officials to ask them to address problems in your community.

i-MapNJ

i-MapNJ is the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection’s (NJDEP) online, interactive mapping tool that provides neighborhood-, county- and state-level environmental information. With i-MapNJ, the public can access a wide range of environmental data, including the location and severity of toxic sites in New Jersey based on information in NJDEP's New Jersey Environmental Management System (NJEMS).

EPA: EnviroMapper

The US EPA’s EnviroMapper enables individuals to access a wealth of environmental information including air releases, drinking water, toxic releases, hazardous wastes, water discharge permits, and Superfund sites. Users can select a geographic area within EnviroMapper and view the different facilities that are present within that area, and create maps at the national, state, and county levels, and link them to environmental text reports.

EPA Air Quality Map [live]

This link takes you to the section of the EPA's website that catalogs all air quality and air emissions data in the U.S. You can group the data by state, metropolitan area and even zip code, and then transform that data into a map that helps to identify and visualize air pollution problems in your area.

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"As a mother of three, member of First Baptist Church of Nutley and youngest of seven siblings, I have always lived my life with a belief that 'If it was going to Be, It is up to Me' and with this I live my life confronting environmental and social injustices to make communities and life better for African Americans. My involvement in the Environmental Justice movement is about establishing networks and developing the next generation of Urban Environmental Leaders because neighborhoods and populations are being disproportionately exposed to multitudes of harmful substances at school, home, work and community."
Read more about D. Kim Thompson-Gaddy and her work