Industry Pollution

Pollution from industry was measured in two ways: Brownfield contamination (land) and CO2 emissions (air). Data for CO2 emissions were taken from the U.S. Energy Information Administration and data for brownfields were taken from the United States Environmental Protection Agency. Data for CO2 emissions were given by state, for the industrial sector only, for 2014.

 

Metrics and Data Sources

Metric Name Definition Data Source
Industry CO2 Emissions State carbon dioxide emissions for the industry sector for 2014. U.S. Energy Information Administration [http://www.eia.gov/environment/emissions/state/]
Brownfields Number of brownfields per state, the number of contaminants found, the number of media affected (such as soil & groundwater), the number of media cleaned, and the percentage of vacant housing within a 0.5 mile radius United States Environmental Protection Agency [https://ofmpub.epa.gov/apex/cimc/f?p=CIMC:CREATETABLE::::::]

 

Results

State CO2 Brownfields Avg Sc Rank
IL 10 5 7.5 7
IN 8 9 8.5 8
IA 2 6 4 4
KY 6 1 3.5 2
MI 7 10 8.5 8
MN 3 4 3.5 2
OH 9 8 8.5 8
WA 1 2 1.5 1
WI 5 3 4 4
WV 4 7 5.5 6

 

Metric Findings

  • Indiana ranks quite poor overall regarding pollution, with an average score of 7.5 and a ranking of 8 out of 10
  • This suggests that Indiana should focus on more policies regarding pollution, especially regarding that of brownfield cleanups, where it ranked second to last.

Top of Page