The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) just hid data that mapped out the locations of thousands of dangerous chemical facilities, after chemical industry lobbyists demanded that the Trump administration take down the public records.
The webpage was quietly shut down late Friday, according to records viewed by the Lever — stripping away what advocates say was critical information on the secretive chemical plants at highest risk of disaster across the United States.
The data was made public last year through the EPA’s Risk Management Program, which oversees the country’s highest-risk chemical facilities. These chemical plants deal with dangerous, volatile chemicals — like those used to make pesticides, fertilizers, and plastics — and are responsible for dozens of chemical disasters every year.
A spokesperson for Coming Clean, an environmental health group focusing on the chemical industry, told the Lever that the organization was “surprised” to see the webpage taken down and that its staff had accessed the data as recently as Friday morning.
“We know that industry had suggested it, so it seems like [regulators] are following industry’s lead,” the spokesperson added.
In a statement to the Lever, EPA spokesperson Molly Vaseliou said that the agency “is re-evaluating the [public data] tool” and its chemical accident prevention regulations “to boost safety and competitiveness of American businesses.”
The communities near these chemical facilities suffer high rates of pollution and harmful chemical exposure. They frequently face evacuation orders from chemical fires, like the one that engulfed an Atlanta suburb in a cloud of toxic chlorine gas last fall. They also tend to be poorer and more under-resourced, making it even more difficult for residents to hold powerful industry actors in their neighborhood accountable — especially if residents don’t know where their facilities are.
There are nearly…
Auteur: Katya Schwenk
