Have you checked out Envirofacts lately? It's been made over into a cool, newly powerful tool that can help environmental journalists find and report great local and regional stories. A new environmental mapping tool has transcended its kludgy origins and grown up to be a lens for seeing environmental impacts whole.

You no longer have to be a geek to use it. Try typing your ZIP code into the main search field — or type in "Lake Tahoe" or "Glacier National Park" and see what happens. You'll find a smorgasbord of environmental databases that help define American communities.

• Envirofacts Warehouse [2] (new version).
• Enviromapper [3] for Envirofacts.