Consumer Confidence Report for Local Drinking Water Utility(ies)
Local drinking water utilities are legally required to publish every year a document called a "Consumer Confidence Report" which informs customers of what contaminants may be found at what levels in their drinking water. There are many good stories to be written about where these contaminants come from and what effects they may have on people's health. In fact, there are good stories also about what isn't in the reports. A fairly extensive list of links to local reports is here, but contact your utility if you don't see it.

Source Water Assessment for Your State and Your Local Drinking Water Utility
Local drinking water utilities are required to compile and publish a "Source Water Assessment," which identifies where its raw surface or ground water comes from and what activities may threaten to contaminate that water. The reports (and underlying studies) are legally required to be made available to the public. Likewise, each state must have a SWA Program, which is described in a document you can get. If the documents you get lack specifics or seem uninformative, don't be afraid to press for the details behind them (for example, the "Contaminant Source Inventory" for your watershed.) These may offer the starting point for many stories about how various environmental changes affect your community's health. More info here, and also especially helpful is EPA's "Surf Your Watershed" site.

NPDES Permit for Local Sewage Treatment Works
Every facility that discharges significant pollution into a US waterway must have a permit, according to the 1972 Clean Water Act. This requirement applies to "point sources" of pollution — the focused kind that often comes from the end of a pipe. Often, the facilities most responsible for algae-choked, oxygen-starved waters are not factories but sewage treatment plants, which discharge the plant nutrients nitrogen and phosphorus. These, too, must have permits under the "National Pollution Discharge Elimination System" (NPDES), which in most cases is administered by your state environmental agency under EPA oversight. Many sewage treatment systems aren't making the progress they should toward cleaning up waters, while others may be promoting sprawl or unwanted growth. Your local story begins with the NPDES permit itself — which is public record. It's actually less useful to think of it as a "document" than as a "data set." Ask your state water pollution control agency. But a very convenient way to get this data is through EPA's "Envirofacts" data system (just punch in "water" and your ZIP code).

NPDES Permits for Major Local Industries
"Point-source" pollution of your local lakes, streams, or estuaries may also come from other human activities — which also must have NPDES permits. It may come from a handful of big industrial plants, from a large population of small facilities (try gas stations), or even operations of local, state, or federal government. Your unique local story begins with a survey of NPDES permits in your area. The story may be about a single plant or a whole category of polluters (feedlots, known as CAFOs, are now required to have NPDES permits for the first time). Your state water pollution agency can tell you more. But, again, a very convenient way to get this data is through EPA's "Envirofacts" data system (just punch in "water" and your ZIP code).

ECHO Compliance History for Major Local Industries
Laws against air, water, and land pollution mean little if they are not followed and enforced. Often, they are not. Often, great local environmental journalism is about bringing egregious examples of this to public attention. Whoever the potential big polluters in your area are, EPA's ECHO (Enforcement and Compliance History Online) database makes that job much easier. For each facility, it tells you whether compliance inspections have been conducted by EPA or State/local governments; whether violations were detected; and whether enforcement actions were taken and penalties were assessed in response to violations. Make sure to verify the data you find in ECHO by checking with state agencies and permit-holders.

Operating Permits for Major Air Pollution Sources
The Clean Air Act of 1972 requires major sources of air pollution to have permits. Existing sources must have operating permits, while new sources must have a different kind of permit. In both cases, the permits require the source (such as a factory or power plant) to reduce emissions of pollutants to the greatest degree feasible — a level spelled out in a complex array of federal and state rules. In most cases, the permits are actually issued by state air quality agencies, under EPA oversight. Permits (and permit applications) are a matter of public record and the law requires public notice and comment before they are granted. You can use EPA's Envirofacts Warehouse as a master index for finding facilities of interest to you in your area. To get further information about the permit and the amounts of pollution a facility generates, you will probably need to go the the air quality agency in your particular state.

Risk Management Plans for Major Local Industries
There are many industrial facilities that present grave toxic risk to neighboring communities — and these include not merely the expected petrochemical refineries, but also chlorine-using water and sewage treatment plants, and large ammonia-using refrigeration plants, among others. The 1990 Clean Air Act (Sect. 112r) required them to draw up "Risk Management Plans" (RMPs) spelling out what the hazards are — and what the facility will do to prevent, prepare for, and respond to a leak, spill, fire, or explosion if it happens. At industry's urging, Congress took much of this information offline even before the 9/11 terrorist attacks. But much is still on the public record, even if it is hard to get. You may find a number of local stories that start with a call or visit to your "Local Emergency Planning Committee" (LEPC) to have a look at particular RMPs.

TRI Form R Filings for Major Local Industries
One of the great steps forward in the public's right-to-know about toxic chemicals coming from all kinds of industrial facilities was the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI). A 1986 law enacted in the wake of Bhopal requires over 90,000 facilities to report on their handling of some 650 chemicals. Each facility handling these chemicals in amounts above a certain threshold must file a "Form R" detailing specific quantities produced, imported, recycled, disposed of, or released to air, land or water. It is important for reporters and the public to realize that not all releases of toxic substances to the environment are even regulated under federal and state law — so the TRI offers a first-level assessment of what toxic threats a given facility might present to your community or its environment. You can search Form R data for your area either through the TRI Explorer on the TRI Web site or EPA's Envirofacts Warehouse.

Forest Plan for Nearest National Forest
The USDA Forest Service manages some 191 million acres of land — an amount roughly the size of Texas (or 8.5 percent of US land area), in 155 national forests and 20 grasslands. These are spread across 43 of the 50 states, and there is probably one near you. The National Forest Management Act of 1976 requires the Forest Service to manage the forests for multiple use (balancing timber production against other purposes like recreation and wildlife habitat). It also requires each forest to have a "resource management plan" (aka Forest Plan) which sets out policy for balancing the uses. Many of the plans are currently in the middle of a long revision process — and the interplay over Forest Plans is the matrix in which many major decisions are made. You can find the forests nearest you at the USFS Web site, and by linking to the Web site for each individual forest, you can find the Forest Plan (be it draft or final) and accompanying documents (such as an environmental impact statement).

Record(s) of Decision for Local Superfund Sites
While some abandoned toxic and hazardous waste dumps, like that at Love Canal, near Niagara Falls, NY, have been cleaned up — others, such as the asbestos-contaminated vermiculite mining site near Libby, Montana, are still having major impacts on people's health and livelihood. A 1980 law created a federal "Superfund" program aimed at finding such sites and funding their cleanup. While much was accomplished in the intervening decades, many sites remain hazardous, the tax that paid for cleanups has expired, and federal funding and the pace of cleanups is steadily diminishing. Many dangerous sites aren't even on the federal list. You can find an extensive list of hazardous sites in your area by searching the CERCLIS database on the EPA Superfund Web site. The "Record of Decision" is the one document that offers an overview of the threats at each site and measures to address them.

"Impaired Waters" (TMDL) Lists
Finding the most polluted streams, lakes, and estuaries in your area is easy. Section 303(d) of the Clean Water Act requires each state to list and prioritize "impaired waters" — waters that do not meet quality standards even when regular effluent limits are imposed on "point sources" of pollution. EPA estimates that about 40% of US waters still do not meet the water quality standards states, territories, and authorized tribes have set for them. That is more than 20,000 waterbodies including about 300,000 miles of streams and shorelines and approximately 5 million acres of lakes. Often, the culprit is diffuse ("non-point") pollution and runoff bearing sediments, excess nutrients, and harmful microorganisms. Some 218 million Americans live within 10 miles of an impaired waterbody. States compile 303(d) lists on a 2-year cycle. For each waterbody listed, the state must also set a "Total Maximum Daily Load" (TMDL) that would allow standards to be met for pollutants involved. Get lists from your state agency or from EPA.

Water Quality Inventory
You can get a fairly good idea of just how clean or dirty any given waterbody in your state is by checking your state's Water Quality Inventory. Section 305(b) of the Clean Water Act requires each state to submit to EPA biennially a report including "a description of the water quality of all navigable waters" in the state: an analysis of whether they are fishable and swimmable; an analysis of what measures would be needed to make them so; and analysis of the costs and benefits of taking those measures. You can get these reports from your state water quality agency, but EPA compiles them into an online database and a biennial report.

Regulatory Agenda for Federal Agencies
Depending on how the environmental beat is defined in your locality or news organization, you may spend time covering EPA, Interior, Energy, the USDA Forest Service, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, other agencies, or all of the above. You can plan for upcoming news at any of these agencies by looking at its "regulatory agenda," which outlines their plans for future rulemaking efforts. Twice a year, each agency publishes its regulatory agenda in the Federal Register, which is available free online daily. These are not hard to find, since agencies tend to publish them all at the same time at roughly 6-month intervals and the Federal Register is searchable. (Try also searching on "Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions.") The agendas are required by Executive Order 12866 (issued in 1993; document in PDF format) and overseen by the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Some agencies publish their agendas in a regular and predictable place online, such as EPA.