Accidents, spills, leaks, and past improper disposal and handling of hazardous materials and wastes have resulted in tens of thousands of sites across our country that have contaminated our land, water (groundwater and surface water), and air (indoor and outdoor). Some of the more common categories of contaminants include: industrial solvents, petroleum products, metals, pesticides, bacteria, and radiological materials. These contaminated sites can threaten human health as well as the environment, in addition to hampering economic growth and the vitality of local communities. EPA and its state and territorial partners have developed a variety of cleanup programs to assess and, where necessary, clean up these contaminated sites. Cleanups may be done by EPA, other federal agencies, states or municipalities, or the company or party responsible for the contamination. Click the following links for more cleanup-related information and resources.

The EPA has expanded its use of the Virtual Earth mapping platform through its "Cleanups in My Community" web portal to provide a mapping and listing tool that shows sites where pollution is being or has been cleaned up throughout the United States. It maps, lists and provides cleanup progress profiles for:

• Sites, facilities and properties that have been contaminated by hazardous materials and are being, or have been, cleaned up under EPA's Superfund, RCRA and/or Brownfields cleanup programs.
• Federal facilities that have been contaminated by hazardous materials and are being, or have been, cleaned up under EPA's Superfund and/or RCRA cleanup programs.

From the site home page, you define the type of clean-up information you are looking for in the left pane and the geography for that area through the right pane.

For the purpose of this discussion, I choose "All Cleanups" and then select Boulder County in Colorado. And then click "map it", as pictured below.

Below is the resulting map. When I mouse over one of the datapoints, I am able to click on the link for that facility and get additional information provided by the EPA (also pictured below). Note that a map legend is available by clicking on the corresponding tab at the top of the right pane.

Very useful tool for citizens to learn about the state of their environment. Love seeing the Virtual Earth platform being used more for environmental purposes! -=Virtual Jerry