What NC neighborhoods have the most permitted sources of pollution? We mapped them.
In more than 1,300 communities across North Carolina, facilities granted pollution-control permits sit tucked into city centers or border highways and residential neighborhoods.
They include sites contaminated with hazardous material or facilities that have state or federal permits to discharge pollutants into the air or water.
They are likely near you.
It is neighborhoods with multiple sources of pollution that concern environmentalists and healthcare workers.
Cumulative exposure, they say, can lower a person’s quality of life and decrease property values. They can also exacerbate underlying health conditions in four of the five leading causes of death in North Carolina – heart disease, stroke, cancer and COVD-19, said Kirsten Minor, health manager for CleanAIRE NC, a nonprofit group.
In considering most air and water permits, the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality typically considers only pollution to be emitted by a facility seeking a new permit or a renewal. In only some instances, does the agency account for whether pollution from a new site could combine with what existing facilities already emit, or the cumulative risks for people nearby.
To examine neighborhoods near multiple polluters, The Charlotte Observer and The News & Observer mapped contaminated sites or locations in the state hosting facilities with environmental permits. They include:
▪ Superfund sites: Sites contaminated by hazardous waste that was dumped or improperly managed.
▪ Toxic release sites: Sites that contain toxic chemicals that might pose a threat to human health and the environment.
▪ Coal ash ponds: Sites that store the waste generated primarily by coal-fired power plants.
▪ North Carolina air quality permits: Sites that the state allows to release contaminants into the air.
▪ National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permits: Sites permitted to discharge contaminants into U.S. waterways
After plotting the locations, we merged them with a North Carolina map of census tracts — neighborhood-size boundaries used by the federal government for census counts. About half of the state’s 2,600 census tracts in the state have at least one of these sites, data show. Fifty-two have 10 or more.
Because census tract sizes vary, we calculated the number of sites per square mile for each tract.
About 75 census tracts, areas the size of neighborhoods, have at least two polluters per square mile, the newspapers’ analysis found. Combined, those tracts are home to more than 200,000 people.
These operate legally under state law. But their combined potential risks are, for the most part, invisible to regulators and people living nearby.
