Google Earth Adds Pollution Data

EPA joins with Mexico and Canada to promote new access to information The environmental agencies of North America joined together with Google to launch a new online pollution monitoring mapping tool today. Google Earth will add a layer of data showing pollution sources in the United States, Mexico and Canada. Americans may be familiar with the Toxic Release Inventory data that shows the levels and types of pollution from many industrial facilities. Now, that type of data is available across three countries -- for the first time in one place. It also includes data from Mexican facilities -- a first for the country, and a potentially rich source of information for the Mexican border states that might be downwind of smokestacks across the border. The data, developed by the three-country Commission for Environmental Cooperation, is accessible at www.cec.org/naatlas/prtr. The environmental agency officials, who met in Morelia Mexico for the 14th Council Session of the Commission for Environmental Cooperation today, also agreed to promote green building, cooperate on air pollution controls and support conservation of the monarch butterfly and vaquita porpoise. The commission was born during negotiations over the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA. -- Dan Shapley, news editor