People are surprised to see their local dry cleaners on the database. One of the agency's main missions, in fact, is to increase awareness of the impact of pollution on the environment and public health among community leaders, journalists, local activists, average citizens and businesses. Greater community awareness will encourage and prod polluters to become more environmentally responsible. At least that's the intent. Envirofacts maps the 700,000 sites that handle potentially dangerous chemicals and identifies their harmful substances.
Users can access information on the sites by name, address or ZIP code.
Before Envirofacts, that data was difficult to obtain even for EPA workers. The information was locked tightly in seven unconnected databases on an IBM mainframe. Even then, registered users sometimes had difficulty making sense of the data. Each division designed and built systems on its own using different technologies. So if a citizen requested information on sources of pollution in his community, EPA workers had to run reports from several databases.