NPR "Poisoned Places" Report Finds 16 PA Facilities On EPA Watch List

Scott Detrow

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Scott Detrow is a congressional correspondent for NPR. He also co-hosts the NPR Politics Podcast.

Detrow joined NPR in 2015 to cover the presidential election. He focused on the Republican side of the 2016 race, spending time on the campaign trail with Donald Trump, and also reported on the election's technology and data angles.

Detrow worked as a statehouse reporter for member stations WITF in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and KQED in San Francisco, California. He has also covered energy policy for NPR's StateImpact project, where his reports on Pennsylvania's hydraulic fracturing boom won a DuPont-Columbia and national Edward R. Murrow Award in 2013.

November 7, 2011 | 1:14 PM

: Click on the above graphic to view an interactive map of Pennsylvania polluters

This morning, NPR and the Center For Public Integrity launched an investigative series examining the effectiveness of the federal Clean Air Act, and levels of pollution in communities across the county.
The first report in the Poisoned Places series centers on a “watch list” the Environmental Protection Agency maintains to track polluters.

Pollution violations at more than 1,600 plants across the country were serious enough that the government believes they require urgent action, according to an analysis of EPA data by NPR and the Center for Public Integrity. Yet nearly 300 of those facilities have been considered “high priority violators” of the Clean Air Act by the Environmental Protection Agency for at least a decade.
About a quarter of those 1,600 violators are on an internal EPA “watch list,” which the agency has kept secret until now.
EPA estimates facilities across the country emit 40 percent less toxic emissions in 2005 than they did in 1990, but toxic air pollution has persisted in communities like Ponca City, Okla., Hayden, Ariz., Tonawanda, N.Y., and Muscatine, Iowa.

The “watch list” includes sixteen Pennsylvania locations, including two state prisons, and a state-owned hospital. Sort through a spreadsheet of all the “watch list” locations here – scroll about halfway down the page to find the spreadsheet link. Click on the image of the map to view an interactive graphic of Pennsylvania’s polluters.Want more information about the data behind the map? Find it here. Finally, click here to read CPI’s accompanying story.
We’ll link to NPR’s “Poisoned Places” reports throughout the week.