Environmental Justice ZIP Code Rankings — 2026

ZIP code 39501 covers the lower half of Gulfport, Mississippi — a Gulf Coast city of 73,000 that sits between the Ship Island petrochemical channel and the CSX rail yards that bisect its historic north-side neighborhoods. It ranks first on this list. Two ZIP codes in Pascagoula, Mississippi, the home of Chevron's largest Gulf Coast refinery, rank 13th and 49th. New Orleans, Louisiana — 70112 and 70126 — enters the top 20 before Marion, Louisiana (71260), a rural Union Parish community surrounded by paper mills and natural gas infrastructure, also scores in the top five. Indiana places seven ZIP codes in the top 100: South Bend twice (46601 at #2, 46619 at #51), Terre Haute, Indianapolis twice, Fort Wayne, Anderson, and Lafayette. West Virginia adds five consecutive entries in the 36–40 range: Point Pleasant, Moundsville, Paden City, Ravenswood, and Clarksburg — five Ohio River industrial towns in a single unbroken band.

Welcome to the Environmental Justice Rankings. We analyzed 30,612 ZIP codes using EPA's EJScreen composite methodology, which scores each postal area on the overlap between environmental pollution burden and demographic vulnerability. The pollution burden side draws on drinking water violations, wastewater discharge proximity, lead paint estimates, particulate matter, and hazardous waste proximity — all sourced from EPA's Safe Drinking Water Information System, FEMA flood data, and EPA radon zone maps. The vulnerability side captures low income, people of color, linguistic isolation, low education, and low life expectancy. A high EJ Index means a community faces both elevated pollution exposure and reduced capacity to absorb it — a combination the EPA calls "disproportionate environmental burden."

What the data reveals. The geography of America's highest EJ burden is not random, and it is not explained by pollution alone. The Gulf South corridor — Mississippi, Louisiana, and coastal Alabama — accounts for a disproportionate share of the top 25 because these communities sit at the intersection of petrochemical infrastructure built during the mid-20th century and historically Black neighborhoods that were systematically excluded from housing mobility by redlining and industrial zoning. Gulfport's 39501 and Pascagoula's 39581 face industrial port and refinery load that has operated within city limits for generations. Louisiana's entries — New Orleans 70112, Marion 71260, Winnfield 71483, Bogalusa 70427, and Minden 71055 — trace a corridor of paper mills, chemical plants, and natural gas infrastructure running north from the Gulf. Indiana's cluster reflects a different history: the deindustrializing Midwest, where steel, auto parts, and chemical manufacturing left behind contaminated soil and aging water infrastructure in communities where median household incomes have not recovered to pre-2008 levels. Florida's 14 entries span a wider geography — Miami, Lakeland, Tampa, Gainesville, the rural panhandle towns of Madison and Marianna — unified not by a single industry but by aging municipal water systems, phosphate-adjacent soils, and the concentration of low-income and immigrant populations in older urban cores.

The bottom of this list. The ZIP codes with the lowest EJ burden in the dataset are, predictably, low-density exurban and rural areas in states with minimal industrial permitting, younger housing stock, and populations with higher median incomes and greater access to alternatives when public infrastructure fails. These communities are not pollution-free; they are communities where the demographic vulnerability half of the equation is low, meaning that when an environmental issue does arise, residents have more resources to respond. The presence of Wyoming, western South Dakota, and suburban New England ZIP codes near the bottom of the EJ ranking reflects wealth and infrastructure age as much as it reflects clean air or clean water.

How to read this ranking. The EJ Index is a composite vulnerability score, not a health outcome. A ZIP at 100/100 does not mean that every resident has been harmed — it means that the measured combination of pollution burden indicators and demographic vulnerability indicators in that postal area is at the top of the national distribution. For policymakers, the list identifies where Title VI civil rights complaints, Superfund prioritization, and infrastructure grant targeting are most warranted. For researchers and journalists, it provides a starting point for identifying communities where additional investigation of cumulative pollution exposure is appropriate. For homebuyers, it signals ZIP codes where infrastructure deferred maintenance, slower regulatory enforcement response, and reduced access to clean-water alternatives deserve due diligence before a purchase.

What this ranking does not tell you. It does not measure specific health outcomes — cancer rates, asthma hospitalizations, lead blood levels — in any of these communities. It does not capture individual-level exposure; two households on the same block may have very different actual contact with pollution sources depending on housing age, home use of private wells, and proximity to point sources. It does not show historical trends: a community that cleaned up a major facility in 2015 may still carry legacy contamination in soil and groundwater that the current-period pollution indicators underweight. And because EJScreen operates on census tracts that are then aggregated to ZIP codes — which do not follow demographic or environmental boundaries — some scores reflect blending across heterogeneous sub-areas. A score derived from a compact urban ZIP carries different interpretive weight than one derived from a rural ZIP covering 200 square miles. Both are published here; see the rankings methodology for the full treatment.

30,612 ZIP codes analyzed · Data last refreshed 2026-04-13

Top 100 Worst ZIP Codes

Rankings by State

Methodology

The Environmental Justice Index combines environmental risk factors (water violations, lead, flooding) with socioeconomic vulnerability indicators. Higher values indicate communities facing disproportionate environmental burden. This metric highlights areas where infrastructure investment and policy attention are most needed.

Data sources: EPA Safe Drinking Water Information System (SDWIS), FEMA National Flood Insurance Program, EPA radon zone maps, EIA electricity rates, and Consumer Confidence Reports. Last updated: 2026-06-04.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the Environmental Justice Index?

The EJ Index identifies communities that face disproportionate environmental hazards relative to their socioeconomic resilience. Areas with high violation counts, aging infrastructure, AND vulnerable populations score highest. These areas need the most infrastructure investment.

Why does environmental justice matter for homebuyers?

High EJ Index areas often have deferred infrastructure maintenance, slower violation resolution, and less access to clean water alternatives. For homebuyers, this means potential hidden costs for water filtration, flood insurance, and home remediation.

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