Statewide surveillance and mapping of PFAS in Florida surface water
Florida’s water bodies are vital for drinking, agriculture, recreation, tourism, and climate resilience. The monitoring of water quality is critical for the state, with consequences for both human health and the economy. This work describes our statewide monitoring of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) within a myriad of water bodies in Florida to establish a PFAS baseline and determine hotspots. Surface water samples were obtained between April 2020 and December 2021, from 2323 sites, via crowdsourcing from all 67 counties in Florida and were subsequently analyzed for 50 PFAS via high-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry. The mean concentration of ΣPFAS across Florida was 29 ng/L, with a maximum ΣPFAS concentration of 3048 ng/L. Moreover, 23 counties reported perfluorooctanoic acid and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid levels over the EPA’s maximum contaminant level of 4 ng/L, with 915 and 920 sites over the limit across the state, respectively. Data was organized by site coordinates, and predictive heat maps highlighting regions of concern were created. First attempts were made to identify possible PFAS pollution sources by overlaying suspect entities (airports, military installations, and wastewater treatment plants), in addition to relating data to historical pollution spill notifications (e.g., wastewater influent, effluent, and sludge).
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To provide an efficient statewide collection of surface water samples in Florida, a water collection program, consisting of two crowdsourcing cycles, was implemented. The first crowdsource cycle engaged >120 undergraduate students at the University of Florida via social media outreach. The second cycle of water sampler recruitment focused on engaging >70 citizen scientists and environmentally focused organizations within the state. All samplers were provided sampling kits and a sampling protocol, which
highlighted how to collect the surface water sample and avoid sample contamination. Site selection was determined via consultation with each sampler and incorporated several aspects, such as safety, cost, proximity to pollution sources, and overall geographical representation. While some sites in proximity to potential pollution sources were targeted, maximizing geographical coverage of Florida remained one of the main objectives in this study. In addition to written instructions, we also provided a YouTube training video to supplement sampler training. By utilizing crowdsourcing, we were able to collect 2323 surface water samples in all 67 counties in Florida |
Below is a map of all sites sampled in Florida. You can search by county or you can zoom in on the map for the region you want to check. Once you have a site you would like to see the PFAS concentrations, put your cursor over the dot and an information window should pop up. In the information box, only those PFAS that were detected are shown (concentration in ng/L or ppt). Note that for some locations, the GPS coordinates may be slightly off, in these instances, the concentrations are from the water body closest to the point. Remember that the pending MCL for PFOA and PFOS is 4 ppt (ng/L).

(A) Map of Florida with dots representing all surface water sampling sites with quantifiable levels of PFAS (n = 2056). Dot color
corresponds to the measured ΣPFAS concentration, according to the key. Six regions (light gray circles) with high densities of yellow/red circles,
indicating elevated levels of ΣPFAS, are highlighted. (B) Predictive heat map of Florida PFAS levels based on the measured ΣPFAS concentrations
of the surface water samples. These predictions are extrapolated from surface water values and do not intend to describe land PFAS values.

a Data for all sampling sites (n = 2323) sorted by detection frequency. Excluding those PFAS with less than 30 detection hits (<2% of samples). Peaks determined to be < LOD or < LOQ were not utilized
in calculating the mean or median concentrations. However, peaks LOD < x < LOQ were used in calculating detection frequency. Internal
laboratory abbreviations defined as perfluoro-3,7-dimethyloctanoic acid (Syn35), 7H-perfluoro-4-methyl-3,6-dioxaoctanesulfonic acid (Syn32), 7Hdodecafluoroheptanoic
acid (Oak6), and perfluorobutanesulfinic acid (Syn34).
Since 2017, the FDEP has documented every pollution based spill, as self-reported by local entities. This information is publicly available at here. Exporting all pollution notices prior to 2022 (up to last surface water sample collected in this study), we found a total of 7395 spills with GPS coordinates (this is after removing duplicates and citations with inaccurate coordinates). Over these 7395 spills, approximately 78% of these listed estimated volumes (in gallons) for what was spilled. The spill type and amount were tallied from the incident reports and organized into five categories (with number of incidents prior to 2022): raw sewage (2152), untreated/partially treated wastewater (1936), treated wastewater (755), solids (sludge/biosolids, 111), and various liquids (e.g., fuel, 765, liquid which did not fit into the other four categories). Summing all the estimated spills per category (in gallons), resulted in high volumes spilled: raw sewage (104 million gallons), untreated/ partially treated wastewater (341 million gallons), treated wastewater (970 million gallons), solids/sludge (2.3 million gallons), and various liquids (10 million gallons). Note that within these incident reports, a significant contributor to spills occurrence was large episodic weather events, such as hurricanes, flooding and overflows. A map that shows all spill locations (prior to 2022) is shown in Figure B below. We then compared the location and quantity spilled with the PFAS heatmap (A), notice any similarities?? More research is needed to investigate this potential source of PFAS pollution.

(A) Predictive heat map for ΣPFAS, (B) Map of Florida with all reported spill locations by the FDEP between 2017 and 2022. All maps include regional inserts around (A) Pensacola, (B) Jacksonville, (C) Tampa Bay, (D) Orlando/Cocoa Beach, (E) Sarasota/Ft
Myers, (F) Lake Okeechobee, and (G) Miami/Ft Lauderdale.

(C) Map
of Florida with reported raw sewage spills (in gallons), and (D) Map of Florida with reported untreated/partially treated wastewater spilled (in
gallons). All maps include regional inserts around (A) Pensacola, (B) Jacksonville, (C) Tampa Bay, (D) Orlando/Cocoa Beach, (E) Sarasota/Ft
Myers, (F) Lake Okeechobee, and (G) Miami/Ft Lauderdale.
Full citation: Camacho CG, Antonison A, Oldnettle A, Costa KA, Timshina AS, Ditz H, Thompson JT, Holden MM, Sobczak WJ, Arnold J, Kozakoff M et al. Statewide Surveillance and Mapping of PFAS in Florida Surface Water. ACS ES&T Water. 2024 Sep 19;4(10):4343-55.
For more information about this study or if you would like a copy of the publication, please email Dr. Bowden at [email protected].
For more information about this study or if you would like a copy of the publication, please email Dr. Bowden at [email protected].