According to a new report by Environment America, 226 million pounds of toxic chemicals were discharged into 1,400 waterways across the country in 2010. Just five states—Indiana, Virginia, Nebraska, Texas, and Georgia—account for forty percent of the total amount of toxic discharges in that year, the latest for which data is available from the EPA’s Toxics Release Inventory. The single largest polluter was Ohio’s AK Steel, which dumped nearly 30 million pounds of pollutants into waterways in 2010, and the Ohio River ranked first among the nation's waterways for the most toxic discharges, with 31.1 million pounds.
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Reed McManus / Photo by iStock/Phototreat
