Help localize the story of contamination in New Jersey

As you know, we officially launched our Dirty Little Secrets project this week – a collaborative investigation into New Jersey’s toxic legacy. One of the goals of this project is to foster collaboration among media organizations to produce meaningful stories for New Jersey.

In that spirit, we’re inviting journalists to use the data and mapping tools we’ve created to tell stories that are relevant to readers in your New Jersey community.

For a look at contaminated sites in your area, see WNYC’s interactive map. Of particular interest are those sites that are marked “in limbo,” meaning that they are currently without a clean-up plan.

For contaminated sites that are vulnerable to sea-level rise and storm surges, see NJ Spotlight’s map.

Here are some examples from local media partners who have already started localizing the story:

• Baristanet looked at the data from the map in WNYC’s latest story and found all the contaminated sites in the “Baristaville” area (Montclair and Glen Ridge).
• Hoboken Patch used the data NJ Spotlight’s story on all the sites that are vulnerable to sea-level rise to create a list of all the Patch towns with sites that are vulnerable to spills during flooding.

There’s plenty of information out there and much more to come, and we look forward to seeing what you end up creating with it.

Don’t forget to send an email to info@njnewscommons.org with links to any stories you come up with so we can promote them on social media via the NJ News Commons accounts, and remember to use the hashtag #ToxicNJ so your stories are included with the rest.