Portland, OR

My standard response to the inevitable “How’s Portland” question from my non-Oregon-dwelling friends is “It’s clean.” I stand by that remark, for the most part, as this city is pretty clean when it comes to litter. However, my mind got to thinking and I pulled up the scorecard website. And really, Portland is not all that clean…

If you are not down with Scorecard.org, it could be one of your favorite sites or a rather nightmarish experience. It depends on whether you are the sort of person that wants to know things, or believes that ignorance is bliss.

Scorecard tracks environmental pollution. All businesses are required to file a Toxic Release Inventory to the Environmental Protection Agency, and TRI’s are an important source for Scorecard among other sources.

Anyhoo, I plugged in my zipcode of 97202.

Portland, Oregon ranks among the top 20% of dirtiest/worst counties. In total environmental releases, cancer risk score, non-cancer risk score, and in air releases of recognized carcinogens, Portland (I plugged in six or seven different zip codes, and they all came back the same ranking) ranks in the 80-89th percentiles among all US counties. Multnomah County ranks in the 90th to 100th percentiles among counties in number of air releases of recognized reproductive toxicants. Some good news is that Multnomah only ranks in the 70’s for air releases of recognized developmental toxicants.

See, I told you this could be nightmarish.

However, if I choose the Clackamas County portion of 97202, then the numbers are very different.

So, some good news there, I guess.

For fun, I plugged in some other zip codes from other major metropolitan areas of the country.

I chose 90037, which is in the middle of the Los Angeles Sprawl. Dirtier than Portland.

How about somewhere in the middle of Houston, Texas? That is a notoriously dirty city. Across the board in the 90-99th percentile. Dirtier than Portland.

Hm, let’s try a similarly sized city, and a West Coast city. Bakersfield, California is a bit bigger than Portland. Bakersfield’s score is a mixed bag, slightly worse in total releases and cancer and non-cancer risk, but better in recognized toxicants released into the air.

I know, I will pick my old zip code in Chicago, 60622. Just like Houston. Glad I moved.

And get this, I tried NYC, because I always have problems with my asthma as soon as I arrive there. It’s got to be dirty, right?

I chose 10016, Lower East Side of Manhattan. Quite clean. But then I tried Queens county, and it is still pretty clean. What is up? Newark has to be bad, right? Nope.

Huh, guess I will stop telling everyone how clean it is here.

pollution, Portland, Oregon, clean, toxicants, air releases, cancer, risk, toxic release inventory, EPA, scorecard, Multnomah, Clackamas, Los Angeles, Houston, New York City, NYC, Newark, Bakersfield, Chicago, Queens