Finding Environmental Problem Sites

If you're interested in finding Maryland (or any state, for that matter) sites which may have been cited for enviornmental violations, your best bet is a number of databases from the EPA. The EPA's Superfund Program designates specific sites around the country as being contaminated with hazardous waste. Included in the Superfund Program are National Priorities List--"a list of national priorities among the known releases or threatened releases of hazardous substances, pollutants, or contaminants throughout the US." To see the National Priorities List for a paricular state, see this page; to search the NPL database, click here. You can also search ECHO (Enforcement and Compliance History Online), a database that provides access to compliance and enforcement information for approximately 800,000 EPA-regulated facilities. To search ECHO click here. You can search by zip-code or city and state (eg., "Baltimore, MD"). In addition to EPA data, certain state environmental agencies (Maryland not among them) also provide access to compliance and enforcement data.