Toxic list leans to the East

Good news for the dirty-air titan state of California:

The National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) yesterday released its list of the “Toxic 20″ states with the highest levels of air pollution from power plants.

California didn’t make the list.

Neither did Arizona, another state that chronically shows up in the top 10 areas for particle and ozone pollution. Arizona did show up, however, among the 28 states in which power plants are the leading source of toxic air pollution,

In fact, the list of power-plant pollution states tilts decidedly toward the East Coast, with only Texas remotely reaching Westward in the toxic roll call.

The states on the NRDC “Toxic 20″ list, from worst to best, include:

1. Ohio
2. Pennsylvania
3. Florida
4. Kentucky
5. Maryland
6. Indiana
7. Michigan
8. West Virginia
9. Georgia
10. North Carolina
11. South Carolina
12. Alabama
13. Texas
14. Virginia
15. Tennessee
16. Missouri
17. Illinois
18. Wisconsin
19. New Hampshire
20. Iowa

The NRDC listings are based on an analysis of EPA’s Toxic Release inventory, known as the TRI, a national database of toxic emissions self-reported by industrial sources.

For more information, check out the NRDC website.