In early February, we received a lot of media attention with the launch of our new, attractive and great-looking 'Spill Tracker' website.
Data on chemical accidents (some of which are chemical disasters) is definitely something that the public and environmental journalists should own. So be sure to check out Spill Tracker. But you also need to understand what it does, what it doesn't do, and how industry and government are helping or hindering you to learn about dangerous spills.And you should know too other Related sources.
Source of data
First, it's worth knowing that Spill Tracker is run by a group called Beyond Petrochemicals. This group is essentially an environmental organization and is a coalition of partners in his group that receives funding from Bloomberg His Philanthropies.
The group's purpose is to focus on environmental justice and oppose petrochemical plants, especially planned new plants. The director is Heather McTeer Toney, a prominent activist who also served as a regional administrator for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) during the Obama administration.
Therefore, much of what is posted on spill tracking sites is aimed at persuasion, with the policy goal of preventing approval, financing, and construction of new plants, rather than simply reporting.
How to use data wisely
What the Spill Tracker site provides is not the processed, structured “data” that data journalists think of. Still, it can be a good source of breaking news.
That's because Spill Tracker is an updated series of links to news media accounts about the incident. They are not all spills. There are also things like flares. It seems to be updated at least weekly. Several incidents may occur per week.
Yes, there are definitional issues as to which chemicals and which incidents are of real concern. “Petrochemical” is a fairly broad term and covers many sins. Additionally, it does not cover all substances that may be harmful to the human body. Chlorine gas, anhydrous ammonia, sulfuric acid, and hydrofluoric acid are dangerous to health, but not exactly petrochemically dangerous.
There is also a bias toward including catastrophically harmful incidents rather than small-scale releases that can lead to long-term harmful chronic exposures.
Other data sources on petrochemical accidents
If you've read this far, you're probably interested in data on petrochemical accidents. There are several databases for that purpose.
chemical accident tracking device: A group called the Chemical Hazard Prevention Coalition publishes a very useful database on chemical accidents. This federation is an association of many organizations primarily concerned with environmental protection, and its scope ranges from local to national. I've been doing it since January 2021.
Even non-geeks will appreciate that this tracker displays data in the form of an interactive map. Enthusiasts will be happy to be able to access the underlying data in table format. But don't get too excited, as what you'll find below are mostly links to news media accounts. The whole thing is searchable.
Media articles are not the only data sources. Other sources are also included (some of which are listed below). We applaud this tracker's sincere efforts to establish a “methodology.” This section leads to other sources of information. It is also transparent about policy issues such as preventing chemical accidents and strengthening EPA's risk management programs.
national response center: The federal government has established the National Response Center as a place where first reports of various types of spills, pollution, and disaster events are collected. It is operated by the U.S. Coast Guard but works with various other federal and state agencies.
Many of the reports the company receives are required under various environmental laws. For example, the U.S. Clean Water Act requires companies to report oil spills. Similarly, emergency planning and community right-to-know laws require businesses to report spills of certain toxic chemicals.
Information reported to the center was once readily available to environmental journalists in near real time. But in 2015, the Obama administration made access much more difficult. However, some data can be downloaded online in spreadsheet format. It will take a considerable amount of time to be published. You can access the data available here.
PHYMSA Hazardous Materials Incident Data: The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration maintains data on hazardous material spills during pipelines and other transportation. The best starting point for accessing this data is our search portal or the Transport Disadvantaged Areas data tool. That data is mostly limited to transportation accidents.
Toxic Release Inventory: The mother of all toxic substance databases, this database tracks the handling of chemicals, including petrochemicals. Although it doesn't track catastrophic releases, it can help us see where large amounts of toxic chemicals end up, such as in landfills or in the atmosphere.
sky truth: A different approach to petrochemical spills is SkyTruth, a nonprofit organization that uses geographic data from satellites to track oil spills and other events.
ITOPF: The International Tanker Owners Pollution Federation is an organization that tracks oil spills from tankers and other vessels.
resource watch: This project from the nonprofit think tank World Resources Institute tracks oil and chemical spills around the world.
NOAA: The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has an Office of Response and Recovery that responds to oil and chemical spills in coastal and marine environments. The raw data for the incidents involved is stored in a raw incident data file.
[Editor’s Note: For more on this topic, see a Feature on politicking over the chemical facility anti-terrorism standards, along with a TipSheet on tracking down the CFATS facilities. Also check out another TipSheet on using toxic chemicals data for reporting in your community, Toolboxes to help you use the CompTox chemicals dashboard, CAMEO software for covering chemical disasters and TSCA chemical data sets, and a Feature on how journalistic teamwork uncovered years of chemical regulatory failure in Texas. Plus, track related headlines with EJToday.]
This post was originally published by the Nonprofit Environmental Journalists Association and is reprinted here with permission. Lightly edited for clarity and style.
Joseph A. Davis He is a freelance writer/editor in Washington, DC, who has been writing about the environment since 1976. He writes his TipSheet, Reporter's Toolbox, and Issue Backgrounder for SEJournal Online, curates SEJ's weekday news headline service EJToday, and @EJTodayNews. Davis directs SEJ's Freedom of Information Project and also writes his Opinion column for WatchDog.