A year long project has come to an end! It was great working with y'all! Tessa Vu Pawan Khanal Prajwal Poonacha and Victoria Valdivia !
An excerpt from one of the students (Tess Vu):
In January I waded into Cobbs Creek in 28°F weather with a sampler head that just fractured mid-collection. There was a beat to reassess then a quick trip to Lowe's and it was fixed with an L-joint and duct tape to continue the sampling. That was day two of the Philadelphia Emerging Contaminants Initiative, a program asking where contaminants are in Philadelphia's water, what moves them, and who's exposed.
Over three months, our team sampled 51 sites across waterways and public buildings in every PWD service area. We analyzed PFAS via LC-MS/MS, toxic metals via ICP-MS, and microplastics via fluorescence imaging, then mapped everything against land use, treatment infrastructure, and social vulnerability. Some of the key findings include:
Full interactive StoryMap: https://arcg.is/0WT0fb1
- Microplastics and PFAS were detected in almost every location tested.
- For tap water, PFAS values were very similar to those reported by PWD, which were sometimes above proposed regulatory limits.
- Toxic element (metals) concentration tended to increase from source to tap, likely due to leaching from pipes.
- Centralized treatment means that neighborhoods typically had similar water quality even across social vulnerability index.
- The amount of industrial land immediately adjacent to Cobbs creek strongly correlated with increased lead concentrations in the water.
