Methodology and Sources

Finding an objective way to compare the risk across very different types of facilities is inherently difficult. Comparing a landfill to a missile silo facility is impossible to objectively measure and score. Beyond that comparing one specific well-managed landfill to a poorly ran one is impossible at the scale of data we’re talking about. That being said, just lumping everything into a couple categories gets rid of a lot of the nuance. So, I’ve tried to find a middle ground to compare each sub-category.

I’ve also deliberately avoided the topic of likelihood because that’s even more difficult and doesn’t play, as much, into the vague concept of “scariness”. After all, how likely is it that there’s something that’ll get you in if you’re walking in the woods at night? That doesn’t mean it’s not “scary”.

Definitions

All scoring is done at the sub-category (if possible) level. Each sub-category was scored on a scale of 1->5 for each type of risk. The total risk score is then simply the sum of all the individual risk scores. The table below defines the 4 different types of risks that each sub-category is rated on.

RiskPrimary DriverTimescaleKey Characteristics Examples
Catastrophic EventSudden, high-impact eventsImmediate - High human casualties and long-lasting infrastructure damage
- Major societal disruption (e.g., large-scale evacuations, economic collapse)		Low - Defunct landfill.
High - Nuclear meltdown.
OperationalOngoing pollutant releases as part of normal operation.Over time - Risk during active operation of a facility
- Potential for accidents, spills, or ongoing dangers to local communities		Low - Nuclear power plants largely just release steam day-to-day.
High - Air pollution from coal power plants.
Acute Local DisruptionImmediate risks to individuals and environmentAcute or short-term - Immediate impact on public health, infrastructure, or economy
- Likely localized and temporary disruption		Low - Defunct mine.
High - Natural gas power plant explosion. This is highly destructive to the local area, but that destruction won’t spread.
Long-Term ContaminationPersistent legacy of contaminationDecades+ - Persistent contamination of air, water, soil, or ecosystems
- Long-term environmental harm or health risks to surrounding communities		Low - Superfund sites that have completed their cleanup actions.
High - Nuclear waste storage.

  • Power plants can be some of the worst polluters around due. Additionally, due to the realities of transmitting electricity, they’re frequently located near heavily populated areas. These are the reason why, when you open the map, it looks like there are large polluters everywhere, because there are.

    • Data Source -US Energy Information Administration

      • Sub-categories - The map only shows power plants with a primary fuel source of: petroleum, natural gas, nuclear, and coal.

      • Risks - Power plants are the most complicated of all our sub-categories

        • Catastrophic Event

          • Petroleum - 2 - These could explode, but destruction is limited in scope.

          • Natural gas - 2

          • Nuclear - 5 - The benchmark for how bad something could be.

          • Coal - 3 - Initially, I thought this would be the same as petroleum. But then I learned about the potential forash pond breaches.

        • Operational

          • Petroleum - 4

          • Natural gas - 3 - Natural gas burns cleaner than other fuels, giving it its lower score.

          • Nuclear - 0 - Nuclear just produces steam as part of its day-to-day.

          • Coal - 5 - Coal power plants are as bad as it gets when it comes to just running them. Terrible for the air and therefore for us to breathe.

        • Acute Local Disruption

          • Petroleum - 3 - An oil spill can cause some severe immediate impacts. Additionally, losing a power plant in a city has a sizeable impact in that community.

          • Natural gas - 2 - 

          • Nuclear - 5 - Similar to catastrophic event, 

          • Coal - 3 - Coal byproducts can wreck a local environment very quickly.

        • Long-term Contamination

          • Petroleum - 3 - An oil spill can stick around for decades.

          • Natural gas - 2 - The main long-term contamination is contributing to climate change.

          • Nuclear - 4 - We all know about the difficulties with nuclear waste. No solid solutions here.

          • Coal - 4 - Coal is surprisingly bad here. The main issue is with water contamination from the ash.

        • Totals

          • Petroleum - 11

          • Natural gas - 10 - The least scary type of power plant. Searching around the web confirms this when comparing it to other fossil fuels.

          • Nuclear - 14 - A potentially controversial score given it has a fairly safe track record. However, the potential for something severe happening ramps up its scariness score.

          • Coal - 15 - Don’t live near a coal plant.

      • Ideal scoring - Ideally, I would’ve scored plants individually based on their power plant’s operations. For example, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission assesses each nuclear plant using a probability risk assessment each year. However, those scores are not made public. I might submit a FOIA request at some point to get these

  • Thousands of contaminated sites exist nationally due to hazardous waste being dumped, left out in the open, or otherwise improperly managed. These sites include manufacturing facilities, processing plants, landfills and mining sites. A superfund site is when the EPA has been brought in to clean up the mess. Learn more.

    • Data Source - Environmental Protection Agency

    • Sub-categories - none.

    • Exclusions - all sites with a status of “deleted”. These are sites where all of the cleanup activity has occurred. All sites with a status of “potential” are also excluded. These are places the EPA is investigating.

    • Risks

      • Catastrophic Event - 1 - In general, superfund sites are no longer in operation (there are some exceptions). As such, nothing particularly catastrophic can go wrong.

      • Operational - 1 - Similar reasoning as above.

      • Acute Local Disruption - 1 - Similar reasoning as above.

      • Long-term Contamination - Varies by site - The EPA has a “site score” (ranging from 1-100) for how contaminated a site is. Each site was given points based on the quartile of site scores they were in. As in, if a site has a score of 86, it’s in the 4th quartile giving 4 points. That being said, to be placed on the National Priority List (NPL)simply being on this list indicates there is some hefty cleanup, so 1 is added to each quartile point (e.g. the 4th quartile becomes a “5)”). Additionally, the minimum score to be on the NPL list is 28.5, meaning no sites on this list are in the first quartile. Therefore, the effective minimum for each site on this list is a “3”.

      • Data issues - Some sites have no site score for some reason. This gives them a long-term risk score of “2”.

    • Ideal scoring - I’d love to just base this off of the site score that the EPA provides. I would need a way to normalize that across all the other categories.

  • I will admit, this is the category that I’m taking guesses at the potential risks here. If you have more information you want to share, please contact me to help out.

    • Data Source - Joint Munitions Command

    • Sub-categories - Production facility, storage and distribution facility, and demilitarization facility.

    • Exclusions - None.

    • Risks

      • Catastrophic Event - 3 - all get 3 for the potential total facility explosion.

      • Operational - I assume it’s not 0, but it’s not huge. So, they get a 1.

      • Acute Local Disruption - 3 - pretty big if the facility exploded. But, compared to a nuclear explosion it’s not as large.

      • Long-term Contamination

        • Production facility - 3 - I’m assuming that these sites also test some of the items that are produced. Any military site that uses lots of ordinance inevitably leaves some behind. These things CAN be cleaned up, but it takes a lot of effort.

        • Storage and Distribution/Demilitarization facilities - 0 - I’m hopeful that these sites aren’t testing their munitions and therefore aren’t leaving things to be discovered.

  • Facilities in different industry sectors must report annually how much of each chemical they release into the environment and/or managed through recycling, energy recovery and treatment, as well as any practices implemented to prevent or reduce the generation of chemical waste. This has a large variety of industries that you’d expect (petroleum) and some that you wouldn’t (food).

    • Data Source - Environmental Protection Agency

    • Sub-categories - I used the “industry sector” field available in the data. There are 30 different sectors.

    • Exclusions - None.

    • Risks

      • Catastrophic Event - varies - almost all get a 1. However, I upped a few that sounded explody: natural gas processing (3), chemical wholesalers (2), petroleum (3), electric utilities (2), and petroleum bulk terminals (4).

      • Operational - varies - almost all get a 1. Some got bumped up: primary metals (3), natural gas processing (4), metal mining (3), and coal mining (3). After digging into some of these, more nuance is needed here based on the actual chemicals released.

      • Acute Local Disruption - varies - all the same sub-categories that got bumped in catastrophic got similarly bumped here.

      • Long-term Contamination - varies by site - 

    • Ideal scoring - there’s a lot to unpack in these TRI numbers and I learned that a big number doesn’t mean “omg, we’re all gonna die”. Ideally I’d have a singular score from the EPA indicating how bad something is.