In this section:

The current vogue for poisons has failed utterly to take into account these most fundamental considerations. As crude a weapon as the cave man's club, the chemical barrage has been hurled against the fabric of life a fabric on the one hand delicate and destructible, on the other miraculously tough and resilient, and capable of striking back in unexpected ways. These extraordinary capacities of life have been ignored by the practitioners of chemical control who have brought to their task no high-minded orientation, no humility before the vast forces with which they tamper.

— Rachel Carson

Maps

Alaska Community Action on Toxics has developed the only comprehensive database of contaminated sites in Alaska. Integrating data from various state and federal databases, we have mapped 2,000 military, oil and gas, mining, and other industrial sites. We have also mapped water bodies and sensitive habitats along the tracks where the Alaska Railroad Corporation plans to spray harmful herbicides.

GIS helps us to understand the nature and extent of contamination in relation to communities, water sources, environmentally sensitive areas, and subsistence use areas.

	Railroad Map #1 National Hydrography Data (NHD) in the Vicinity of the Alaska Railroad
	Railroad Map #2 National Hydrography Data (NHD) in the Vicinity of the Alaska Railroad
	Railroad Map #3 National Hydrography Data (NHD) in the Vicinity of the Alaska Railroad
	Railroad Map #4 National Hydrography Data (NHD) in the Vicinity of the Alaska Railroad

	Military Sites in Norton Sound Region


	Chemical Weapons, Radioactive Waste, and Superfund Sites Includes Superfund sites, chemical weapons dumps, toxics release inventory (TRI), and radioactive waste sites.
	Exposure to Humans Includes contaminated sites tracked by Alaska Dept. of Environmental Conservation (ADEC), classified by type of exposure concern.
	Hazards Ranking Model Includes contaminated sites tracked by Alaska Dept. of Environmental Conservation (ADEC), classified by severity in ADEC’s Hazards Ranking Model.
	Military and Other Federal Includes military, Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), Coast Guard, and Department of Commerce sites tracked in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Formerly Utilized Defense Sites (FUDS) database and the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Alaska Military Sites Project database.