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TOXMAP was a geographic information system (GIS) from the
United States National Library of Medicine The United States National Library of Medicine (NLM), operated by the United States federal government, is the world's largest medical library. Located in Bethesda, Maryland, the NLM is an institute within the National Institutes of Health. I ...
(NLM) that was deprecated on December 16, 2019. The application used maps of the
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to help users explore data from the
United States Environmental Protection Agency The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is an independent agency of the United States government tasked with environmental protection matters. President Richard Nixon proposed the establishment of EPA on July 9, 1970; it began operation on De ...
's (EPA) Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) and
Superfund Superfund is a United States federal environmental remediation program established by the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (CERCLA). The program is administered by the United States Environmental Pro ...
programs with visual projections and maps.


Description

TOXMAP helped users create nationwide, regional, or local area maps showing where TRI chemicals are released on-site into the air, water, ground, and by underground injection, as reported by industrial facilities in the United States. It also identified the releasing facilities, color-codes release amounts for a single year or year range, and provides multi-year aggregate chemical release data and trends over time, starting with 1988. Maps also can show locations of Superfund sites on the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry
National Priorities List The National Priorities List (NPL) is the priority list of hazardous waste sites in the United States eligible for long-term remedial investigation and remedial action (cleanup) financed under the federal Superfund program. Environmental Protec ...
(NPL), which lists all chemical contaminants present at these sites. TOXMAP is a useful
environmental health Environmental health is the branch of public health concerned with all aspects of the natural environment, natural and built environment affecting human health. To effectively control factors that may affect health, the requirements for a hea ...
tool that makes epidemiological and environmental information available to the public. There were two versions of TOXMAP available from its home page: the classic version of TOXMAP released in 2004 and, a newer version released in 2014 that is based on
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/
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technology. In addition to many of the features of TOXMAP classic, the new version provides an improved map appearance and interactive capabilities as well as a more current GIS look-and-feel. This included seamless panning, immediate update of search results when zooming to a location, two collapsible side panels to maximize map size, and automatic size adjustment after a window resize. The new TOXMAP also improved U.S. Census layers and availability by Census Tract (2000 and 2010), Canadian National Pollutant Release Inventory (NPRI) data, U.S. commercial nuclear power plants, as well as improved and updated
congressional district Congressional districts, also known as electoral districts in other nations, are divisions of a larger administrative region that represent the population of a region in the larger congressional body. Countries with congressional districts includ ...
boundaries. TOXMAP classic users may search the system by location (such as city, state, or ZIP code), chemical name, chemical name fragment, release medium, release amount, facility name and ID, and can filter results to those residing within a pre-defined or custom geographic region. Search results may be brought up in
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or
Google Earth Google Earth is a web mapping, web and computer program created by Google that renders a 3D computer graphics, 3D representation of Earth based primarily on satellite imagery. The program maps the Earth by superimposition, superimposing satelli ...
, or saved for use in other tools. TOXMAP also overlays map data such as U.S. Census population information, income figures from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, and health data from the
National Cancer Institute The National Cancer Institute (NCI) coordinates the United States National Cancer Program and is part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which is one of eleven agencies that are part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. ...
and the
National Center for Health Statistics The National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) is a U.S. government agency that provides statistical information to guide actions and policies to improve the public health of the American people. It is a unit of the Centers for Disease Control ...
. The data shown in TOXMAP comes from the following sources: * EPA
Toxics Release Inventory The Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) is a publicly available database containing information on toxic chemical releases and other waste management activities in the United States. Summary of requirements The database is available from the United ...
(TRI) * EPA
Superfund Superfund is a United States federal environmental remediation program established by the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (CERCLA). The program is administered by the United States Environmental Pro ...
Program (National Priorities List/NPL) *
Environment Canada Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC; )Environment and Climate Change Canada is the applied title under the Federal Identity Program; the legal title is Department of the Environment (). is the Ministry (government department), department ...
* National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) Superfund Research Program * Hazardous Substances Data Bank
NLM TOXLINE (Toxicology Bibliographic Information)
*
Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) is a federal public health agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The agency focuses on minimizing human health risks associated with exposure to hazar ...
*
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* Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results database *
National Center for Health Statistics The National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) is a U.S. government agency that provides statistical information to guide actions and policies to improve the public health of the American people. It is a unit of the Centers for Disease Control ...
*
Nuclear Regulatory Commission The United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is an independent agency of the United States government tasked with protecting public health and safety related to nuclear energy. Established by the Energy Reorganization Act of 1974, the ...
*
Esri Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc., doing business as Esri (), is an American Multinational corporation, multinational geographic information system (GIS) software company headquartered in Redlands, California. It is best known for ...


Shutdown

The database was pulled from the internet by the Trump administration in December 2019. The NLM said in a statement that much of the information remained available from the original sources, and that thus the database could be removed; critics, such as the Environmental Data & Governance Initiative, suggested it was part of a larger effort on the part of the administration to obfuscate the detrimental results of the rollback of Obama-era environmental regulations. The data underlying TOXMAP remains accessible through their original resources: Government of Canada National Pollutant Release Inventory (NPRI), U.S. Census Bureau, U.S. EPA Clean Air Markets Program, U.S. EPA Geospatial Applications, U.S. EPA Facilities Registry System (FRS), U.S. EPA Superfund Program, U.S. EPA Toxics Release Program (TRI), U.S. NIH NCI Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results Program (SEER), U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).


See also

* Hazardous Substances Data Bank *
Environmental health Environmental health is the branch of public health concerned with all aspects of the natural environment, natural and built environment affecting human health. To effectively control factors that may affect health, the requirements for a hea ...


References


Further reading

*Hochstein, Colette, Gemoets, Darren
Ten Years of Change: National Library of Medicine TOXMAP Gets a New Look
At: 2014 * *Hochstein, Colette, Gemoets, Darren
TOXMAP: Environmental Health Maps Now Powered by ArcGIS Server
At: 2011 Esri Federal User Conference. *Hochstein, Colette, Gemoets, Darren
Recent Enhancements to TOXMAP, an Environmental Health GIS
At: 2008 Esri Federal User Conference. * * * Hochstein C, Szczur M. TOXMAP: A GIS-based gateway to environmental health resources. In: Thomas C; Standards for Success: GIS for Federal Progress and Accountability. Redlands, CA: ESRI Press; 2006; pages 50–56; . * * * Szczur, Marti; Krahe, Chris; Hochstein, Colette
TOXMAP: A GIS Information Portal to Environmental Health Databases
At: 2004 Esri International User Conference.


External links


NLM TOXMAP
*
NLM TOXNET
*

{{National Institutes of Health Pollution in the United States Toxicology United States Environmental Protection Agency Biochemistry databases Medical search engines American environmental websites Government-owned websites of the United States Hazardous waste Geographical databases in the United States