Philadelphia named America’s most toxic city
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the ‘City of Brotherly Love,’ is the most toxic city in the U.S. according to a ranking by forbes.com, which looked at air and water quality in major metropolitan areas.
"Philadelphia doesn’t have great air, but other cities have worse," said forbes.com writer Morgan Brennan. "But the Philadelphia area has over 50 Superfund sites [unused areas containing hazardous material], really poor water quality, and a hefty amount of toxic releases."
The cities of Bakersfield and Fresno in California followed in second and third place, with New York City and Baton Rouge, Louisiana rounding out the top five. They were chosen from the country’s 80 largest metropolitan areas.
"The good news is that most of these cities have some sort of initiative in place to improve air quality. A lot of cities in California have introduced clean air initiatives, for example," said Brennan.
Brennan also noted that a city’s toxicity level does not directly measure the risk to a citizen’s health.
"For the most part, just because a city ranks high for toxicity doesn’t directly mean that people in those areas are being exposed to or running the risks of cancers that are related to toxicity," she explained.