Researchers mapped U.S. public parks with toxic waste dumps. What they found was frightening

Though the thought of toxic waste may conjure images of comic book monsters and neon green slime, the threat of hazardous pollution is unfortunately very real—and a new report shows it’s closer than you might think.

Researchers at the University of Michigan compared the locations of America’s public parks with sites of toxic waste and chemical dumps. Their findings cross-referenced a dataset of more than 150,000 public parks (including everything from massive national and state parks to local “park-like” areas like playgrounds, hiking trails, and even cemeteries) with two categories designated by the Environmental Protection Agency: Superfund sites, places where toxic waste has been improperly disposed of, and Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) sites, facilities that handle hazardous chemicals.

The results are staggering. Nearly a fifth (18%) of public parks in the U.S. are within two miles of a Superfund site. That’s 26,886 parks not far from toxic waste dumps; 2,442 of those parks contain land that directly overlaps with a Superfund site. 

Meanwhile, parks’ proximity to TRI sites is even more dire. More than half (52.6%) of the country’s public parks are within two miles of a TRI site, and 9.3% have TRI sites either overlapping or falling within a half mile of their boundaries.

Not every state faces the same toxicity. Missouri and Virginia had the highest number of parks containing TRI sites with six each. Colorado had the largest amount of total park area overlapping with Superfund sites, with 430,610 square miles of the state’s parkland falling into the category. Only five states—Arkansas, Maine, Mississippi, North Dakota, and Wyoming—had zero public parks overlapping with Superfund sites.

How dangerous is it to live and play in parks exposed to toxic materials? With the current state of the data, it’s difficult to tell on a park-by-park basis. The researchers acknowledged the limitations of their study, including their inability to measure the presence of specific pollutants in parks, but noted that proximity to hazardous waste sites is linked with a higher risk of adverse health effects like “birth defects, cardiovascular disease, and neurological conditions.”

“Understanding that parks and polluting sites overlap adds important nuance to public health research on green space,” the researchers wrote in their report. “Research that considers parks as a monolithic public health benefit fails to consider the significant overlap between green space and polluting sites in the U.S. and the implications for communities that utilize these parks.”

The researchers hope that their findings will help increase environmental advocacy in local communities. At the policy level, the urged lawmakers to use their data “to improve urban planning for healthier parks and advocate for better environmental remediation.”