This guidance would provide insights and reduce threats when competing forces — such as land availability, cost, timing, vehicle and utility access, zoning, and developer cooperation — drive decision makers to build a school at a site that may pose a toxic threat to the children and staff.
Following a December 2008 USA Today report on outdoor air pollution at hundreds of schools, EPA began a monitoring process. Final reports for 21 (of the small number of schools selected) have now been released; the results are mixed.
"The winding Mataponi Creek looks clear in the sunlight, with marsh grasses lining its banks. But some of the coal ash waste from a nearby power plant is also coursing through its waters, and residents are worried it is contaminating their well water."
"Here in the vast wilderness surrounding Peru's Alto Purús National Park, the locations of [mahogany] trees, worth tens of thousands of dollars in the United States, have become closely guarded secrets among members of indigenous tribes."
"The Arab world, one of the driest regions on the planet, will tip into severe water scarcity as early as 2015, a report issued [Nov. 4] predicts."
This growing database may help you identify emerging problems and patterns, and supplement what government and university personnel can track.
Dial up just one layer of data, or add layer after layer (from scores of topics) to create your own concoction of interlinked factors. The zoom function allows you to narrow or enlarge your geographic coverage as you see fit.
This new tool allows any user online to create custom study areas based on a wide range of variables: address, ZIP code, county, city, township, facility, watershed, or geographic coordinates. Other environmental data can then be mapped onto that study area.
Viewing local, regional, national, and global water issues through the lens of "peak water," a concept explained in a Pacific Institute paper, can yield some interesting angles on water-related stories and long-term water issues.
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