Pennsylvania Pollution Pollution Pollution involves the introduction of foreign and dangerous chemicals into the environment. These chemicals kill species by poisoning them and interfering with their immune, nervous, and reproductive systems.
Air pollution makes life less healthy for humans and other species.
Unfortunately, our state and our region face serious air quality problems. Pennsylvanians were exposed to unhealthy air conditions on 47 days during the summer of 1998, ranking our state the 5th worst in the nation. The city of Philadelphia has the fourth worst air quality in the country. Water pollution, in addition affecting our drinking water and making many bodies of water unsafe to fish and swim in, threatens species that live in rivers, streams, lakes, and wetlands. According to Toxic Release Inventory data collected by the Environmental Protection Agency and analyzed by PennPIRG in a report called Troubled Waters , almost one billion pounds of toxic chemicals were directly discharged into America's waterways between 1992 and 1996.