Find toxic wastelands via Google Earth

The Environmental Protection Agency wants to make it easier for Google, Microsoft and other enterprising online mappers to spread the word about potentially hazardous sites in your neighborhood.

Agency representatives at a public meeting here on Wednesday unveiled what they billed as the first step in a new push to make the EPA's vast scientific data stores more readily accessible online for download and incorporation into popular applications like Google Earth and Microsoft Virtual Earth.

The agency's ultimate goal is to boost public awareness of its activities--with a loftier aim of improving public health and the environment in the process--by allowing federal agencies, companies and even mashup artists to get their hands on the data more easily. Such data can play a key role in everything from land-use planning to real estate transactions, they said.

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