2 March 2005. The Environmental Protection Agency reports on the status of air quality and air pollutant emissions. This Web page indexes air trends reports from 1994 to present. Reports are annual and consist of a summary, as well as various specialty reports. Special coverage varies from year to year. Some of the reports are available in PDF. 19 June 2001. Revised 13 February 2002. AIRData provides air pollution summaries from three EPA databases -- Aerometric Information Retrieval System (air monitoring data), National Emission Trends (estimates of annual emissions of criteria air pollutants), and National Toxics Inventory (estimates of annual emissions of hazardous air pollutants). 31 July 2007. American Planning Association (APA) is a non-profit public interest and research organization committed to urban, suburban, regional and rural planning. The Web site provides extensive information about the organization and its affiliate, the American Institute of Certified Planners. You will find news, including articles and reports on its role in natural disaster recovery, an education center for information about degrees and standards, jobs, conferences and workshops.
Researchers and legal professionals will find much substantive free information here. There are APA amicus briefs, articles, a bimonthly e-newsletter on federal legislative and public policy issues, policy guides, news and information on eminent domain legislation, article abstracts from professional publications and more. 31 May 2001. Esteemed abstracting and indexing service Cambridge Scientific Abstracts (CSA) offers its database of bibliographic citations of scientific literature as well as several reports on various "hot topics." CSA's hot topics series covers several issues relating to biomedical, environmental, life, and materials sciences. Each report offers information about current issues as well as key abstracted citations and Web sites. This portion of the service appears to be free.
Access to CAS's Internet Database Service requires a subscription. CAS, however, makes an older portion of the database available for searching free of charge. This requires registration.
The fee-based service includes access to databases like AGRICOLA (agricultural sciences), Conference Papers Index, Environmental Sciences & Pollution Management, GeoRef (geological sciences), International Pharmaceutical Sciences, NTIS (technical reports), PsycINFO, WasteInfo (waste management), and more. It also provides access to electronic journals published by CAS.
Searchers may query more than one database simultaneously, deliver search results electronically, set up email alerts for ongoing research, and request full-text articles via interlibrary loan. The later may require membership with participating libraries.
23 October 2003. An independent, not-for-profit research and educational organization, the Canadian Institute for Environmental Law and Policy provides information about Canadian environmental legislation and legal issues. Find guides and other publications on topics like biotechnology, the National Pollutant Release Inventory, environmental mining law, drinking water standards and more. Many of the materials are available in English and French. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) pulls together information on environmental health issues from its Web site. Find featured reports and events, collections of documents by subject and statistical resources. Topics include air quality, bioterrorism, cancer clusters, chemical weapons, food safety, hazardous waste, lead poisoning, water quality and more. The information is arranged so that it is easy to browse. 19 July 2007. The Environmental Law Institute (ELI) has published a new handbook that explains the Clean Water Act in light of the recent Supreme Court ruling in Rapanos v. United States.
From the publisher: "The ELI Handbook lays out the various tests for Clean Water Act coverage under current law. Additionally, the Handbook brings science to bear on the question of determining CWA coverage for certain categories of wetlands and streams, in a way that no other publication to date has attempted."
It is available as a free PDF download. 13 February 2002. Use the navigational menu on the left to find this section of the EPA Office of Pesticide Program's Web site. It contains indexes of cleared science reviews. Cleared science reviews contain information about pesticide studies, including toxicology, environmental fate and groundwater, ecological effects, and product chemistry. They are "cleared" of confidential business information. Select a chemical name to find an index of documents available under the Freedom of Information Act. 1 June 2001. The Technology Innovation Office of the Environmental Protection Agency offers this site about hazardous waste clean-up. It features information about treatment technologies as well as technologies for characterizing contaminated soil and monitoring clean-up efforts. It provides educational, policy and guidance materials, regulatory information, and publications including videos, Internet seminars, and Webcasts.
10 April 2007. The County of Sacramento, California, offers a food safety inspections database. Search by facility name or location to find the inspection reports. The database supports partial name searching. Information provided includes the name and address of the food facility, identification of any major violations, date of the last inspection or re-inspection and the period of closure (if applicable.) In addition, the food inspection report itself is available (in Adobe Acrobat format) for most inspections since July 1, 2002. 10 May 2006. The Center for Research on Occupational and Environmental Toxicology at Oregon Health & Science University offers this portal to substantive information about occupational health and safety. Drill down by subject, or search the site, to find educational materials, articles, fact sheets, Q & A's, and more. Subjects include certain occupations and industries, chemicals, specific safety issues, and more. 12 April 2002. The NASA Solid Earth and Natural Hazards Program offers this subject index of disaster-related resources. The classification of resources in this collection follows the guidelines set forth in the Disaster services section of the Taxonomy of Human Services. The collection cover disaster management (mitigation, preparedness, etc), disciplines (climates, communications, etc), organizations (FEMA, universities, etc), specific types of disasters (earthquakes, fires, etc), and more.
9 January 2002. Revised 19 March 2004. The National Information Service for Earthquake Engineering (NISEE) at the University of California, Berkeley licenses this formerly free database to Maryland-based CSA. Researchers can obtain access through CSA's Internet Database Service, which aggregates more than 70 databases. The database contains abstracts of articles on earthquake engineering and covers 1971 to present. 13 March 2001. Revised 16 January 2004. Operated jointly by the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), ECOLEX provides access to environmental law documents worldwide. Find treaties, international soft-law and other non-binding policy and technical guidance documents, national legislation, judicial decisions and law and policy literature. Search results provide abstracted bibliographic information about these documents. 6 August 2002. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) provides this database containing single chemical toxicity information for aquatic and terrestrial life. Data comes primarily from primary source materials and consists of information on the species, chemical, test methods, and results presented by the author. The database also contains test results compiled by U.S. and international government agencies.
A quick query feature enables searching by species, chemical, or toxicological effect. It provides laboratory data and bibliographic references. An advanced query feature lets you narrow your query by data compiled by certain government entities, publication year, test conditions, or other factors.
Revised 19 March 2004. The Public Health Service, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health and National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) publish this peer-reviewed open access journal on environmental health issues. Find abstracts and full-text articles as well as mini-monographs or small collections of manuscripts that address a specific topic. The manuscripts sometimes include original research. Full-text articles are available in HTML or PDF. 5 January 2004. The Environmental Law Alliance Worldwide provides training and resources for lawyers and scientists in 60 countries, who advocate for a healthier environment. Find news about eLAW partners, including E-Bulletin, which consists of electronic notices of breaking news, and E-LAW Advocate, a quarterly newsletter about the organization's work. Also find an extensive collection of resources arranged by subject or region. The collection includes full-text case law from countries around the world, statutes and regulations, publications and more. Topics include agriculture, air pollution, animal welfare, biotechnology, cleanup of contaminated sites, climate change, food safety, groundwater, industrial pollution, international treaties, procedural issues, recycling, and more. 30 November 2001. Revised 10 February 2006. The Department of Energy, in conjunction with other agencies and the U.S. Government Printing Office, offers this database of bibliographic information about energy and energy-related articles, reports, conference papers, books, dissertations and other publications. Database coverage extends back to 1948. The advanced search template offers numerous ways in which to query the database, including by keyword, author, title and research or sponsoring organization. If the full-text of a document is available on the Web, the database provides location information. 13 January 2003. The Environmental Protection Agency offers this utility for finding federal or state enforcement actions, inspections and violations. Search by facility name or location to find permits and identifiers, information about the facility, inspection and enforcement data, inspection and compliance history, formal enforcement actions, and more.
3 October 2000. Revised 4 February 2005. Formerly a separate system called HUD Environmental Maps, this upgraded system provides mapping tools for displaying housing, environmental, emergency management and census data. The feature, Map Your Community, lets you enter a street address to retrieve various thematic maps. You can retrieve thematic maps by using the advanced toolbar, which appears once the basic map loads, or by browsing the topical folders, which appear to the right of the basic map. When using the folders, click "refresh map" to load the new thematic map.
The feature, HUD Locator Services, provides locator tools for discovering addresses in flood plains or located next to toxic waste handlers, or businesses emitting water or air discharges. It also provides a tool (RC/EZ/EC Address Locator) for finding out if a business or residence is located within a Renewal Community, Empowerment Zone or Enterprise Community. Finally, the Single Family Revitalization Area Locator helps you discover whether a particular location is eligible for the discount sale programs offered in revitalization areas. 31 May 2000. This EPA site reports on data collected "as part of a national research project to support development of national drinking water standards." It offers information about pathogens in drinking water sources, indicators of fecal contamination, disinfectants and disinfection byproducts and the effectiveness of treatment technologies.
26 June 2002. The Environment News Service covers environment-related news stories worldwide. The site maintains a three-month index and permits simple keyword searching. For more in-depth research, search the Environment News Service via Dow Jones/Factiva.
4 March 2003. Summarized and compiled by the National Parks Service, this resource provides information about environmental contaminants. Covering 118 chemical substances, the encyclopedia offers classification information, general toxicity information, carcinogenicity and genotoxicity information, bioconcentration and environmental fate data, synonyms, associated chemicals and more. This resource has a search engine, but it's difficult to find. 4 March 2003. The Environmental Fate Database, hosted by Syracuse Research Corporation -- a non-profit independent research and development firm) providing science and technology consulting services to government agencies -- serves as a gateway to several chemistry and toxicology databases. DATALOG contains environmental fate data (from Chemical Abstract Service (CAS)) for over over 16,800 chemicals. CHEMFATE contains environmental fate and physical/chemical property information on commercially important chemical compounds. BIOLOG provides sources of microbial toxicity and biodegradation data on over 8,000 chemicals. Like CHEMFATE, BIODEG contains experimental values, but for biodegradation subjects. The project receives funding from the EPA, DuPont, and Proctor & Gamble. 5 February 2004. The National Conference of State Legislatures offers a free database for finding legislation and current law on environmental health issues from all 50 states. Coverage extends back to 2000 and topics include indoor air quality, pesticides, lead, asbestos and others. You can search by keyword or other criteria. The information provided includes the state, bill number, sponsor, status, date of last action and description. 19 April 2005. A Midwest environmental advocacy organization, ELPC provides news and information about land use, clean air and other environmental issues. It sponsors a number of listservs on issues of particular interest to residents of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio and Wisconsin. It also provides full-text publications, as well as tips on ecology issues. 18 October 2001. Revised 21 January 2005. Attorney David S. Blackmar created this resource on environmental law, which is now maintained by the law firm Murtha Cullina LLP. Find daily news covering environmental legal issues, articles, and collections of links to environmental laws and regulations, court and agency decisions, agency databases, compliance resources, and more. Revised 21 January 2005. One of the oldest Web collections of information related to environmental law, this Web site indexes and categorizes many useful resources. Find federal and state environmental agencies, federal regulations and legislation, materials on health and safety issues, trade and professional associations, conferences, and factual resources. While it indexes many worthwhile resources, it appears the site has not been updated in about a year. 23 June 2004. The EPA Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurances (OECA) maintains this database containing guidance memoranda on applicability and compliance issues. Determinations involve the New Source Performance Standards (NSPS), National Emissions Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants, chlorofluorocarbons, asbestos and woodstoves. You can search by a variety of criteria including keywords. The results display the full-text of the determination. 2 March 2006. This online form facilitates filing a complaint about an alleged environmental violation. An accompanying brochure highlights signs of environmental trouble and environmental crimes. Complaints may be filed anonymously. 1 March 2002. Revised 22 August 2003. Replacing the Chemical Registry System (CRS), this EPA database provides information on chemical substances and how they are represented in EPA regulations and data systems. Search by chemical name Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS) registry number, Taxonomic Serial Number (TSN), International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV) database identifier, or other identifier, to find basic chemical information, synonyms, applicable regulations, and more. You can also download chemical data sheets. 10 May 2006. The Environmental Protection Agency provides this interface for accessing the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI). The TRI contains data on releases and transfers of certain toxic chemicals from industrial facilities. The TRI Explorer enables searching the most current data for information about chemical disposals or releases in certain geographic areas or industries. Another feature provides state fact sheets, which offer an overview of the current data as it pertains to specific states. 2 August 2000. Energy Technology Data Exchange, of the International Energy Agency, offers a database of over 700,000 bibliographic records and full-text documents pertaining to "the environmental impact of energy production and use." Coverage includes scientific journal articles and conference reports and other gray literature from 1995.
Users must register to access the database, but registration is free. It is NOT immediate, though. In the U.S., allow about 24 hours for activation.
The database offers both simple and advanced search features. The advanced feature provides for searching ALL the fields of a record as well as limiting and sorting by publication date.
21 October 2002. Revised 28 September 2007. European Environmental Law offers a database containing "the full text of the most relevant decisions, including those delivered by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) and the Court of First Instance (CFI), the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea (ITLOS), and some national courts." You can search the database by keyword, case number, parties, decision date, or environmental sector. The cases I retrieved appeared in full-text in English and with a note indicating the original language of the case.
16 March 2004. Revised 18 April 2008. The European Commission offers this database of information about the biggest industrial polluters. The database covers the 15 member states as well as Norway and Hungary, and includes information current through 2001. You can search by a variety of criteria, but unless you use wildcards (*), searching is exact. Site documentation recommends right- and left-side truncation (e.g., *bayer*). Record details include company name, location, pollutants, emissions and satellite images (select records at this time). 29 August 2001. Several academic institutions join to provide information pertaining to pesticide toxicology and environmental chemistry. Visitors will find a newsletter (published irregularly by the University of California, Davis), pesticide information profiles, toxicology information briefs, factsheets, news, and other information. The site offers a search engine for finding references within each of these resources.
2 December 2003. Revised 5 May 2008. Tall Timbers Research Station in Tallahassee, Florida offers a database of literature pertaining to wildfires. It contains bibliographic references to a broad range of publications from countries around the world. The majority of literature, however, comes from North American, and in particular, the southeastern United States. Many references include abstracts. The site also offers a thesaurus that you can browse to find references by subject. By installing additional software, you can download the results of a query. 16 April 2002. The Building and Fire Research Laboratory (BFRL) of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) offers a collection of fire resources -- including a bibliographic database dubbed FIREDOC -- for fire protection engineers, scientists, and fire service personnel. FIREDOC contains bibliographic information about the resources available from the Fire Research Information Services. These include published reports, journal articles, conference proceedings, books, and audiovisual materials. After registering (by phone) to use the database, searchers may also order documents it references. Registration is not required to search the database.
Other resources at this Web site include a collection of online documents (free) published roughly from 1993 forward, a collection of links to related external resources, and links to other BFRL information sources.
6 August 2002. The U.S. Geological Survey offers two GNIS databases: one for the United States and one for Antarctica. It provides geographic information about places. Discover the federally recognized name of a feature or location, its elevation, state and county, longitude and latitude, and more.
31 August 2000. The Office of Scientific and Technical Information of the Department of Energy provides single search access to the contents of five databases: DTIC Report Collection (Defense Technical Information Center), DOE Information Bridge, EPA Reports (National Environmental Publications Internet Site), NASA Jet Propulsion Lab Reports, and NASA Langley Technical Reports. Search by keyword only. Depending on the database(s) selected, the tool returns titles with links 1) to bibliographic information, report abstracts, and full-text in PDF or 2) full-text document images. I was unable to access the NASA databases. 31 October 2001. The National Ground Water Association offers this "database containing nearly 84,000 ground water literature citations with key words, abstracts, chemical compounds, biological factors, geographic locations, authors, titles, publication source names, and more." Indexed documents "include scientific, technical, and trade journals; newsletters; books; government documents; university reports; dissertations and theses; state publications; and proceedings of national and international conferences and symposia." Access to the database is free for members of the association. Others may pay to access the database.
17 September 2002. A subset of the National Library of Medicine's Toxicology Data Network (TOXNET), the database contains information about the toxicology of potentially hazardous chemicals. It includes information on human exposure, industrial hygiene, emergency handling procedures, environmental fate, regulatory requirements, and more. Search by keyword, chemical name or CAS number. 7 November 2001. The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry offers this database of information on the release of hazardous substances from Superfund sites or from emergency events and on the effects of hazardous substances on the health of human populations. The database features an interactive site activity map, which searchers can use to obtain a list of all hazardous waste sites within a particular state.
By the Natural Hazards Research and Applications Information Center at the University of Colorado at Boulder
HazLit is a database of approximately one-third of the articles housed at the Natural Hazards Center library. The database offers bibliographic citations and annotations to articles on disaster management. 19 April 2005. Written by Dr. Jay A. Brown, Haz-Map provides occupational health information for health and safety professionals, as well as for consumers. You may search the publication, or browse it by hazardous agent, occupational disease or type of high risk job. It provides information about chemicals and their health effects. Many entries have cross-references to related information. You can also highlight a term and search it in TOXNET, the National Library of Medicine's collection of databases on toxicology and hazardous chemicals. Haz-Map is also available in CD-ROM. 2 March 2005. The National Library of Medicine (NLM) provides a collection of resources on indoor air quality. It covers sources providing an overview of issues and concerns, sources offering regulatory information, sources for specific chemicals, automatic PubMed queries, links to related organizations and links to sources providing information in Spanish. One of the attractions of NLM collections is the focus on government and other authoritative sources. 17 September 2002. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) offers a database of human health effects that may result from exposure to various substances found in the environment. It contains descriptive and quantitative information about chemicals, including oral reference doses and inhalation reference concentrations for chronic noncarcinogenic health effects, and hazard identification, oral slope factors, and oral and inhalation unit risks for carcinogenic effects. Use the pull-down menu to locate a chemical. Display the full IRIS report or a summary.
18 July 2002. Designed to supplement the multi-volume West publication by the same name, this site provides annotated resources by book chapter, links to treaties, links to major United Nations institutions, agencies, programs, and organizations, links to news stories for current information, and more. 17 January 2001. The International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources-The World Conservation Union offers it Red List of "taxonomic, conservation status and distribution information on taxa that have been evaluated using the IUCN Red List Categories" as a database. Search by keyword, Red List category, country, region, or marine-region.
14 August 2002. The law firm Jones Day provides a database of its publications covering many legal topics, including antitrust, bankruptcy and business restructuring, energy, environment, health care, securities, technology, and more. Search by keyword, or select a publication you want to review (e.g., Jones Day Memoranda) and check the "current" box to receive a list of newer items. 19 June 2006. Appearing in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's MMWR, this report provides information on how to limit exposure to mold and how to identify and prevent mold-related health effects. It offers a detailed definition of mold as well as guidelines for assessing exposure, clean-up and prevention. 6 November 2001. The U.S. Geological Survey offers a database of bibliographic information about paper and digital geologic maps, a search tool for lithologic and geochronologic unit names (GEOLEX), and a database of Geologic Mapping in Progress. Information includes where to find or order the text of citations appearing in the database. Searchers may query the first database using a number of search criteria.
22 May 2002. The Web site for this interagency program offers much information of potential value to legal and environmental researchers. Find information about the status of chemical agents tested by the NTP, chemical health and safety, abstracts of toxicology and carcinogenesis studies, and more.
12 April 2002. The Earth Sciences Directorate and NASA Goddard Space Flight Center maintain this bibliographic database covering literature pertaining to the use of satellite remote sensing for disaster mitigation. Browse by subject, or search by keyword, to obtain bibliographic citations to professional literature.
21 January 2004. The National Response Center (NRC) enables searching for information about oil and chemical spills nationwide. Coverage appears to be from the mid-1980s to present, although site documentation indicates that you can download annual data beginning in 1982 for off line viewing. Search by a variety of criteria, including the incident date, location or responsible company, to find matching reports. Reports include a description of the incident, the party suspected as responsible for the incident, the location, the materials released and more. Two separate report options exist--standard and drill--with no clear distinction between the two. Sample searches generated different results. 24 March 2003. The National Water Information System (NWIS) by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) offers 100 years of historical and real-time water data. Create your own data tables in order to evaluate current water supplies or water quality. Coverage includes surface water, ground water and water quality. 2 March 2006. The Office of Compliance and Enforcement of the Environmental Protection Agency makes available news summaries about recent enforcement or compliance cases or settlements. In addition to the summaries, you will find related documents, such as press releases, consent decrees and complaints. You may search the documents by keyword, or sort the list by date or relevant statute. 13 October 2000. Revised 13 February 2004. The Bureau of Land Management provides information about public land transfers. The database covers federal land title records for eastern Public Land States issued between 1820 and 1908 as well as land titles issued between 1908 and the mid-1960's. It does not cover the thirteen colonies, territories and a few other states. Search by state and name, or by a number of other criteria. The database returns the land accession or serial patent number, state, patentee name, tribe (if Indian land), issue date, U.S. or mineral reservations, authority (law under which the government issued the land), number of acres, land office and other information. It also provides a legal land description, images of the land patent in various formats and certified copies. 23 February 2001. Revised 26 September 2003. ESRI, maker of geographic information system (GIS) and mapping software, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) team to provide maps that show hazard areas. Select a city/state and type of hazard (e.g., flood, earthquake, tornado, etc.) to retrieve a hazard map. 7 September 2005. Find a report by the Climate Change Science Program and the Subcommittee on Global Change Research. Issued as a Supplement to the President's Fiscal Year 2004 and 2005 budgets and submitted to Congress, it "highlights recent research accomplishments and plans for future research necessary to manage the risks and opportunities of changes in climate and related environmental systems." 2 March 2005. The National Library of Medicine (NLM) provides a collection of resources on outdoor air quality. It covers sources providing an overview of issues and concerns, data sources, sources offering regulatory information, sources conducting research, sources for specific chemicals, automatic PubMed queries, links to related organizations and links to sources providing information in Spanish. One of the attractions of NLM collections is the focus on government and other authoritative sources. 23 October 2003. Reed Business, the business to business division of Reed Elsevier Group PLC, sponsors this Web site, which complements the print magazine, Packaging Digest. It provides full-text articles and full-text archives back to January 1996 as well as a free full-text news feed on packaging issues from LexisNexis. The home page contains a lot of clutter, but those looking for product reviews and information about packaging or recycling will find useful information here. 31 July 2007. The American Planning Association makes available this database of abstracts from Planning & Environmental Law. Subscribers can use this research tool to find cases relevant to issues they are working on, searching by state, topic, and date and creating custom folders to save and organize their research. Abstracts contain the case name, citation, court and a detailed description. A subscription to Planning & Environmental Law includes access to PEL Online for the entire staff of the subscribing organization.
The public has the same search options. Results indicate whether there are matches in the database. If there are, you will also see a partial abstract for one of the resulting items. 27 August 2002. The law firm Wright & Sielaty maintains this site devoted to pesticide related news and regulatory information. Find press releases, news summaries, Federal Register documents, regulations as published in the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), guidance and policy documents, case law, statutes, and more. Many documents appear here in full-text; however, those requiring an authoritative source should refer to the primary materials. The cite provides source citations.
The Pesticide Action Network North America offers this database of toxicity, ecotoxicity, and regulatory information for about 5,100 pesticides. Search by chemical name, CAS number, EPA PC Code or CA DPR Chem Code. You can then narrow a search by use type (e.g., insecticide, herbicide, etc.), human toxicity (e.g., bad actor chemical, carcinogen, etc.), regulatory category (e.g., EPA registered, etc.), or chemical classification. You may also query the later categories separately to find, for example, all known carcinogens registered by the EPA.
The database returns a chart containing all matches. The chart includes all the above information about matching chemicals. Click on a chemical name in the search results to find additional data including synonyms, links to information about the chemical in other resources including ChemFinder, TOXNET, Scorecard (Environmental Defense Fund), International Chemical Safety Cards (National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health), and Hazardous Substance Fact Sheets (New Jersey Dept. of Health and Senior Services), detailed human toxicity information, regulatory information, aquatic ecotoxicity, and a list of related chemicals.
Site documentation promises soon to improve the database to enable searching by product name, registration status, or manufacturer, and to add pesticide use information for California by crop, chemical, and geographic region.
14 February 2005. The Pollution Inventory (PI) is an annual record of pollution in England and Wales from select activities regulated by the Environment Agency. It records pollution that is released into the air, discharged into rivers, the sea or the sewerage network, or transferred off site as waste. It includes data from major industrial sites back to 1998. A special feature lets you review emission data from sites near a specific postal code.
In addition to the PI data, you may obtain background information as well as contact information for the PI team. The Web site also offers reporting forms and guidance, a list of substances in the PI and information about them, and a list of abbreviations and acronyms.
31 July 2007. The American Planning Association makes available abstracts from several of its current and former publications, including Planning magazine, Journal of the American Planning Association, Planning & Environmental Law (and its predecessor Land Use Law & Zoning Digest), Zoning Practice (and its predecessor Zoning News), PAS Memo, The Commissioner and Planners' Casebook and Environment & Development (a former publication). Search by author, title, keyword, subject or publication. (See also: PEL Online) 14 December 2001. The EPA Office of Solid Waste (OSW) offers this database of letters, memoranda, publications, and other commentary. The documents represent EPA "interpretations of the RCRA regulations governing the management of solid, hazardous, and medical waste." Document sources include OSW correspondence letters and memoranda, RCRA Permit Policy Compendium guidance documents, and Monthly Call Center Report Q&As. Search by pre-established topic or a variety of other criteria. Bibliographic records link to full-text documents. 17 February 2004. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) offers a database and draft guidance on the use of research models. The "Draft Guidance on the Development, Evaluation, and Application of Regulatory Environmental Models" recommends best practices to determine when a model can best be employed to inform environmental decision making. The Models Knowledge Base contains information on the use, development, validation and assessment of agency models. You can browse the database or search it by keyword. There is also a modeling glossary and library of related documents. The New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services offers hazardous substance fact sheets for numerous chemicals. The "summar[ies describe] the possible routes of entry of the chemical into the body and the major health effects that may result from exposure. Hazardous Substance Fact Sheets are primarily prepared for workers who handle a specific substance."
The Right-to-Know Network provides access to numerous environmental and other databases. Most recently, it offers access to summary risk management plans as reported by companies to the EPA. Also available are the Toxics Release Inventory, CERCLIS, docket information from civil cases filed by the Department of Justice on environmental matters, accidental releases, and more.
13 March 2001. Find environmental civil docket information. Search by facility name or location (zip code) or defendant; or create a docket list by law violated, specific violation, or type of administrative action. 16 March 2004. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) provides this database containing information about public water systems and violations of EPA drinking water regulations. The violation history covers 1993 to present. Search by location or water system identification number. General information provided includes the name of the water system, county served, population served, water source, system status and identification number. Violation details include the type of violation (health or reporting violation), significance, occurrence dates, contaminant and violation code. 5 January 2004. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) offers a database of scientific and technical documents, including risk assessments, technical studies and guidance. It covers topics like aging initiative, contaminated sediments, ecological assessment tools, genomics, tribal science, children's health, cumulative risk, environmental justice and non-indigenous species. Search by keyword to find descriptions of research activities and documents. Each description includes contact information for someone at the EPA associated with the project. You can also browse the database by EPA region. 2 April 2001. Elsevier offers this search engine devoted to finding scientific information. Powered by FAST (alltheweb.com), Scirus collects, indexes, and retrieves information pertaining to agricultural and biological sciences, biosciences, chemistry, Earth and planetary sciences, environmental sciences, life sciences, medicine, pharmacology, social and behavioral sciences, and more.
Using the simple search feature on the home page, searchers may enter a phrase, or string several words together with the Boolean "and," and limit the search to a particular field of science. The advanced search page offers more options including the ability to limit a query so that it retrieves articles only. From the results list, searchers also may select "more like this result" to retrieve items similar to one on the hit list.
Because the engine also indexes information from fee-based subscription services, searchers will find peer-reviewed journal articles. Retrieving these articles (called Membership Sources) requires a subscription to Science Direct.
The Environmental Defense Fund offers this resource for discovering major pollutants by geographic location or company name. This EPA database offers environmental data on several industries including petroleum refining, iron and steel, primary smelting and refining of nonferrous metals, pulp manufacturing, and automobile assembly. Within the database are statistics and other data about specific companies. 5 January 2001. Subtitled "20 Years of Protecting Human Health and the Environment," this EPA report provides an historic overview of the Superfund program and highlights its achievements. The report includes summaries of the responsibilities of federal agencies that work with the EPA as well as a timeline that marks major events from 1976 to 2000.
Find out which companies appear on the National Priorities List (NPL). Locate current CERCLIS or RODS information. Obtain site reports and more. 26 June 2002. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) offers a dictionary of definitions of environmental terms. Also available is a list of abbreviations and acronyms.
24 March 2003. The Microsoft TerraServer provides interactive maps and aerial photographs from the U.S. Geological Survey. Search for a place (e.g., philadelphia, pa) to retrieve a list of initial maps and photos for your interactive session. You can refine the maps and photos by clicking them. When you do this, the service may retrieve another map or photo. You will know when the image source changes because TerraServer provides this information at the top of the map or photo. 22 February 2000. Search for USGS topographic maps by place name (warning: do not abbreviate and search broadly; e.g., search philadelphia rather than philadelphia, pennsylvania) or latitude and longitude. The site offers some interactive features that enable re-positioning or enlarging maps.
4 April 2002. The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) offers toxicological profiles for hazardous substances found at National Priorities List (NPL) sites. Profiles appear in draft and final form. They provide a public health statement and include health effects and chemical and physical information, as well as, information about production, import, use, and disposal, potential for human exposure, analytical methods, regulations and advisories, and more.
18 January 2005. The National Library of Medicine maintains this interactive Web site, which reveals the location and amount of certain toxic chemicals released into the environment. TOXMAP shows the geographic distribution of chemical releases, their relative amounts and trends over time. The release data comes from industrial facilities around the United States, as reported annually to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). 18 May 2006. The National Library of Medicine offers this group of databases devoted to toxicology, hazardous chemicals and related information.
26 January 2001. Sponsored by Oregon State University, this site currently offers two databases for discovering information about freshwater treaties and compacts. In the treaties database, find summaries or full text of water-related treaties. Data available includes treaty name, parties to the treaty, focus of the treaty, main basin, signature date, and other information. The compacts database covers 39 states. Data available includes compact name, participating states, focus of the compact, basin, resolution and other information. 7 September 2005. "The U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) supports research on the interactions of natural and human-induced changes in the global environment and their implications for society. The USGCRP began as a presidential initiative in 1989 and was codified by Congress in the Global Change Research Act of 1990 (P.L. 101-606), which mandates development of a coordinated interagency research program." The Web site provides information about topics relevant to global changes, such as atmospheric composition, climate variability, the global carbon cycle, the global water cycle, ecosystems, land use, and human contributions. 25 July 2007. The Border 2012 Program is a binational 10-year initiative focused on making measurable improvements in environmental quality and health along the U.S.-Mexico border. The Web site offers information about the program, related news and events as well as publications and progress reports. There is also a program directory of contact information. 10 April 2007. Virginia Department of Health provides a link page for finding inspection reports pertaining to restaurants, fast food operations, delis, cafeterias, and other types of food service establishments inspected by local health departments. First, select the relevant county from the left-hand menu. Then drill down the alphabet to find the food service of interest. 19 February 2003. Hosted by the University of Maryland, the Virtual Technical Reports Center provides links to technical reports available either in full-text or as searchable abstracts. Documents available via this extensive index include technical reports, preprints, reprints, dissertations, theses, and research reports. Topics vary, and include the sciences, conservation and environmental law, business, and economics. 10 April 2007. Revised 18 April 2008. Washington State Department of Health provides a page of links to county food safety/restaurant inspection databases. Restaurant health inspection reports are public record in Washington. The Web site explains that the public may review inspection reports on-site at the relevant local county office. But a handful of Washington counties also make the reports available online. 7 May 2002. The Water Quality Information Center at the National Agricultural Library offers several databases and resources pertaining to water and agriculture. Find, for example, the Database of Online Documents Covering Water and Agriculture (electronic publications of several federal agencies), AgNIC (Internet-accessible resources selected by the National Agricultural Library), Selected Water-Resources Abstracts (abstracts of about 10,000 water resources published since 1977), Water Expert Directory (water professionals), and more.
Interactive Learning Paradigms, Incorporated, a company offering web-based distance learning and certification, sponsors this comprehensive research guide on material safety data sheets (MSDS).
The guide not only points to more than 60 Internet sites offering free access to MSDS, it provides information about resources not available via Internet.
27 March 2003. Revised 12 March 2004. Formerly a single database sponsored by the U.S. Geological Survey and entitled Contaminant Exposure and Effects (CEETV), this resource now comprises the database and two utilities. CEETV provides information about contaminant exposure and effects for terrestrial vertebrates (birds, mammals, amphibians and reptiles) that reside in estuarine and coastal habitats along the Atlantic, Gulf, Pacific, Alaskan and Hawaiian coastal regions. A second component of the site offers information about biological and ecotoxicological characteristics of birds, reptiles, mammals and amphibians. Another section lets you rank terrestrial vertebrates by their susceptibility to specific contaminants. 16 April 2001. The EPA offers this interactive tool, current in beta, for finding federal, state, and local information about environmental conditions in your area. The beta release covers EPA Region 3, or Delaware, District of Columbia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia.
To begin, enter your zip code or city/state. The site then presents you with a map you can manipulate as well as local and environmental information. Find local information like zip codes, population, and congressional districts and environmental information like watersheds and number of facilities reporting to the EPA. Clicking the Your Environment tab presents easy links to information about the area's air quality, facilities that handle hazardous waste, superfund sites, and drinking water quality.
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