Environmental Check

How Environmental Oversight Works — and Where It Fails

Normal: The EPA monitors air and water quality, tracks pollution from industrial facilities, inspects for compliance, and enforces environmental laws. Communities can check data through public portals. EJScreen combined demographic data with environmental hazard data to identify overburdened neighborhoods.

Broken: Air quality monitors aren't always placed in the most impacted communities. Facilities self-report much of their pollution data. Inspections are infrequent — some facilities go years between visits. The EPA removed EJScreen from its website in February 2025, along with placing 100+ Office of Environmental Justice employees on leave. Communities in pollution hotspots lost their primary tool for assessing cumulative environmental burden.

Fix: The underlying data still exists. This tool pulls real-time air quality from AirNow and facility compliance data from EPA ECHO. If you see violations in your area, file a complaint with your state environmental agency or the EPA regional office. In Illinois, call the EPA Bureau of Air at 217-782-7326. Community air monitoring through PurpleAir sensors costs $250 and provides hyperlocal data the government doesn't collect.