The City of St Louis was at the top of a list that you don’t really want to be on, the “Top 50 Counties with the Highest Prevalence of Man-Made Environmental Hazards“, just released this morning by RealtyTrac. The city of St Louis scored a 87.2, more than triple the score of Philadelphia (27.8) which occupies the number 2 spot on the list.
In scoring locations for this list, RealtyTrac only looked at counties with a population of 100,000 or more and then ranked them based upon the % of bad air quality days, the number of Superfund sites on National Priority List per square mile and other environmental hazards per square mile. The City of St Louis experiences bad air quality days 7.89% of the time, about 45% higher than the national average of 5.43%, has 5.35 Superfund sites on the the National Priority list, 178 times the national average of .03 and has 13.3 other environmental hazards per square mile, 147 times the national average of .09.
This is yet another example of how the City of St Louis, by not being part of St Louis County and instead being treated as it’s own county, ends up on the short end of the stick (or perhaps exhaust stack in this case) on national statistics. Normally, a city within a metropolitan area is going to be more likely to have environmental hazards than the suburbs but the stats don’t look as bad with the cities’ data is mixed in with that of the suburbs, which is not the case here in St Louis.
Speaking of St Louis County, as the table below shows, it made the list also, coming in at #15 on the list.
Check out StLouisMLS.com
Top 50 Counties: Highest Prevalence of Man-Made Environmental Hazards
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Superfunds
% Bad on Nat'l Other
Air Priority Environmental
Total Quality List per Hazards per
County, State Score Rank Days Square Mile Square Mile
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U.S. Average -- -- 5.43% 0.03 0.09
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Saint Louis City, MO 87.2 1 7.89% 5.35 13.30
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Philadelphia, PA 27.8 2 1.39% 2.33 3.95
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Baltimore City, MD 24.3 3 1.13% 1.62 3.82
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Hudson, NJ 23.5 4 1.23% 2.20 3.15
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Denver, CO 19.9 5 10.58% 0.82 1.58
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Wyandotte, KS 18.8 6 8.29% 0.63 1.97
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Tulsa, OK 18.5 7 7.57% 0.20 2.39
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Essex, NJ 18.3 8 1.52% 1.64 2.38
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Jackson, MO 17.6 9 12.37% 0.33 1.12
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Pinal, AZ 17.5 10 19.03% 0.01 0.02
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Jefferson, MO 16.6 11 13.83% 0.11 0.78
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Richmond City, VA 16.1 12 0.77% 0.94 2.63
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Union, NJ 16.0 13 2.50% 1.02 2.20
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Sullivan, TN 15.4 14 14.88% 0.07 0.34
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Saint Louis, MO 15.3 15 8.65% 0.41 1.30
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Kings, CA 14.6 16 15.71% 0.01 0.04
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Salt Lake, UT 14.1 17 11.87% 0.23 0.53
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Jefferson, KY 14.1 18 6.93% 0.29 1.47
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Tulare, CA 13.9 19 15.02% 0.01 0.02
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Franklin, MO 13.8 20 13.59% 0.06 0.26
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Harris, TX 13.8 21 7.88% 0.23 1.27
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Riverside, CA 13.7 22 14.72% 0.01 0.04
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Suffolk, MA 13.6 23 0.54% 0.73 2.29
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Clay, MO 13.5 24 13.52% 0.08 0.18
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Marion, IN 13.4 25 8.52% 0.34 0.96
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Kern, CA 13.3 26 14.33% 0.02 0.04
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Hamilton, OH 13.3 27 8.38% 0.32 0.98
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District Of Columbia, DC 13.3 28 0.82% 1.26 1.73
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Fresno, CA 12.9 29 13.92% 0.02 0.03
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Dallas, TX 12.8 30 9.58% 0.25 0.69
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San Bernardino, CA 12.2 31 13.17% 0.01 0.02
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Arapahoe, CO 12.1 32 11.97% 0.08 0.19
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Yuma, AZ 12.1 33 13.11% 0.01 0.01
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Merced, CA 12.0 34 12.93% 0.01 0.04
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Oklahoma, OK 12.0 35 8.28% 0.17 0.83
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Cook, IL 11.9 36 5.99% 0.36 1.13
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Maricopa, AZ 11.9 37 12.34% 0.05 0.09
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Adams, CO 11.8 38 11.97% 0.07 0.14
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El Paso, CO 11.7 39 12.28% 0.02 0.08
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Davis, UT 11.5 40 11.56% 0.04 0.18
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Kings, NY 11.5 41 1.23% 0.89 1.57
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Douglas, NE 11.5 42 9.20% 0.27 0.46
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Madera, CA 11.5 43 12.49% 0.01 0.01
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Pueblo, CO 11.5 44 12.27% 0.01 0.04
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Jefferson, CO 11.4 45 11.22% 0.08 0.18
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Weber, UT 11.3 46 11.56% 0.04 0.13
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Bernalillo, NM 11.2 47 10.98% 0.06 0.21
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Gregg, TX 11.1 48 8.21% 0.13 0.69
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Shelby, TN 11.1 49 7.37% 0.32 0.70
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Jasper, MO 11.0 50 8.78% 0.07 0.61
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