Monday, May 19, 2014

What Lies Beneath Your House


Do you know what lies buried beneath your back yard?

I was recently looking through some old nineteenth century maps of my neighborhood and discovered that the land upon which my home was built used to house a large chemical works factory. I've now had second thoughts about that vegetable patch I've always planned to plant.

There are nearly one million chemical spill sites in the United States. Who knows what other environmental hazards lies beneath the ground in your neighborhood?

WhatsDown do, that's who.

WhatsDown is a map of the buried environmental and health hazards in the United States. You can search the map by any location and discover what spill sites, groundwater plumes, environmental protections and munitions areas can be found nearby. Click on a marker and you can view detailed information about the spill, its implications for human health, and the efforts made to clean it up.

No comments: