Mapping the PFAS Contamination Crisis: New Data Show 712 Sites in 49 States
WHY IS THIS MAP IMPORTANT?
The extent of American communities’ confirmed contamination with the highly toxic fluorinated compounds known as PFAS continues to grow at an alarming rate. As of July 2019, 712 locations in 49 states are known to be affected.
The latest update of an interactive map by EWG and the Social Science Environmental Health Research Institute, at Northeastern University, documents publicly known PFAS pollution in public water systems and military bases, airports, industrial plants and dumps, and firefighter training sites. (Details on our sources and methodology are here.)
The updated map shows contamination of 219 military installations, a legacy of the Pentagon’s 50-year history of using firefighting foam with PFAS. The July 2019 update added 53 Air Force bases, five Air National Guard bases and 44 civilian airports that are also used by Air National Guard units. Many of the new PFAS detections, obtained by EWG through a government database, reported PFAS levels greater than 100,000 parts per trillion, or ppt.