About the Tracker

Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash

Clean Air Council helps residents track industrial permitting across Southeastern Pennsylvania and neighboring regions. This tool is based on years of Clean Air Council’s work getting the public involved with the permitting of individual industrial pollution sources. Click any pollution source to view the Council’s previous work as well as industrial permitting information and current environmental violations for individual facilities. Reach out to Russell Zerbo at rzerbo@cleanair.org.

Southeast Pennsylvania fails federal ambient air quality standards and residents in this region report high prevalences of asthma and other respiratory problems. The Council hopes helping residents engage with local industrial facilities will reduce air pollution and protect public health in Southeastern Pennsylvania.

How To Use The Pollution Tracker

As part of its commitment to protect everyone’s right to a healthy environment, Clean Air Council helps residents track the pollution permits that industrial facilities apply for across Pennsylvania. To make it even easier for the public to understand what kinds of pollution are affecting their neighborhoods, the Council created a brand new tool. The Pollution Tracker is based on years of Clean Air Council’s work monitoring and analyzing the applications submitted by businesses to permit them to release pollutants into the air and water. By exploring this tool, residents can look up major facilities in their area, discover permits companies have applied for, where sites have violated those permits, and more.

Where to Begin

There are three ways to discover entries in the tracker: Explore the map and click on the blue or red dots to open detailed entries To find a specific facility, enter its name or address in the search bar and then click on the result Scroll through the list of facilities on the left sidebar and click on each facility name to open its entry

Understanding Each Entry

Title

The entry for each site will begin with its:

• Name
• Street address
• A brief description or label

A red Action Alert   tag indicates that the facility has a known recent permit violation.

A red Pending   tag indicates that the facility has submitted a pollution permit that is pending approval.

Current Permits and Compliance

Any federal penalties paid by the facility in the last five years will be noted in a black box.

Depending on the site, an entry may list any known environmental permits filed in compliance with the following laws:

• Clean Air Act
• Clean Water Act
• Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act
• Resource Conservation and Recovery Act
• Toxic Substances Control Act

Documented permits and their status will be listed in color-coded boxes. Any known violations in the last 10 years will be listed in a black call-out box that contains a hazard or warning triangle symbol.

Important: The absence of a violation notice does not mean that the facility isn’t harming the region or the planet – it simply means that local authorities are not aware that a facility has released more pollutants or waste than it has previously agreed to release. Many of these sites are legally permitted to release harmful substances like greenhouse gases (which bake our planet), particulate matter (which can contribute to respiratory illness), or carcinogens by the government. Still others are not required to have monitoring or tracking equipment for these purposes, which only means we do not know whether they are releasing pollutants at all.

Clean Air Council Action Alerts

Many entries include links to archival Action Alerts that Clean Air Council has previously sent its members in response to happenings at these facilities. These calls to action encouraged the public to provide public comment on polluting industrial proposals. By viewing these previous alerts, residents can learn more about the history of these facilities and their development.

To sign up to receive new Action Alerts, visit cleanaircouncil.salsalabs.org/signup/

Facility Notes

Where available, an entry may link to notes about the site from the offices of Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection or the Environmental Protection Agency.

Documents & Permits

Some entries contain downloadable PDF documents of permit applications, past investigations, risk assessment reports, cleanup or remediation plans, and other relevant reports. Many of these are publicly available, while others have been requested from state agencies. Click on the thumbnail image of each page to download and view a document.

Get Involved or Receive Assistance

If you’d like assistance with understanding the data and documentation found via the Pollution Tracker, or if you’d like to learn how to get involved with the public engagement process, contact Clean Air Council Advocate Russell Zerbo at rzerbo@cleanair.org.