The EPA Let Companies Estimate Their Own Pollution Levels. We Discovered Real Emissions Are Far Worse.
The EPA Let Companies Estimate Their Own Pollution Levels. We Discovered Real Emissions Are Far Worse.
Air Pollution From Industrial Facilities Is Far Worse Than Estimated
And for decades, the Environmental Protection Agency tracked those emissions not by monitoring the air but by relying on a kind of honor system. Companies were allowed to estimate their chemical pollution using methods that even the EPA conceded were often unreliable.
In 2023, the EPA received irrefutable proof that these estimates were highly flawed. The agency had required 20 industrial facilities to temporarily install air monitors around their perimeters — known as fence-line monitoring — to see how bad the pollution actually was.
The results, compiled now for the first time by ProPublica, were shocking.