Based on this national-scale assessment, can EPA determine which areas and/or populations are at greatest risk from air toxics?
This assessment has not focused on the identification of geographic areas or populations that have significantly higher risks than others. Rather, it has focused on characterizing ranges of risks across the country independent of their location. However, in general, we see that larger urban areas tend to carry larger risk burdens than smaller urban and rural areas because the emissions of air toxics tend to be higher in areas with more people. This trend is not universal, however, and can vary from pollutant to pollutant, according to its sources. In addition, there are two reasons why EPA would not choose to rank areas of the country based on this assessment: • First, some areas have done better jobs of reporting/monitoring than others. This thoroughness could give the incorrect impression of higher air toxics concentrations. Wisconsin and Minnesota, for example, have worked hard to ensure that their inventories are complete. As a result, these two states could appear to have relative
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