Aside from rats, dollar pizza shops and the homeless, New York City is also chock full of toxic waste sites, according to this new map from Property Shark. Helpfully plotted are Superfund and brownfield sites, solid waste and major oil storage facilities, along with areas polluted by tank failures and gasoline spills -- including those containing MBTE.
For New York residents getting a uneasy feeling about the number of icons plotted on their block, Property Shark cautions that not all toxic sites are created equal. According to Nancy Jorisch, a senior data analyst for the company, “properties closest to manufacturing plants, gas stations and landfills have the highest amounts of potential toxicity," while others are much more benign. Still, as ThinkProgress points out, these are a lot of environmental hazards for a city that's particularly vulnerable to storm surges.
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