About | ForeverCatch

What This Project Does

PFAS are persistent synthetic chemicals that have been linked to industrial sites, airports, and military installations that historically used PFAS-containing firefighting foam (AFFF). These chemicals can enter waterways and bioaccumulate in fish over time. This project explores whether a simple set of location- and biology-based inputs can produce a useful, approximate risk estimate.

Scatter plot of total PFAS (ppb) in USA freshwater fish against a combined score of elevation, distance to the nearest military base and urban area, and relative fish length — Total PFAS (ppb) in USA freshwater fish plotted against a combined score of elevation, polluter distance (nearest military base and nearest urban area), and relative fish length (length ÷ species average), showing the rapid C/x-style decay that the quantile-regression curves are fit to.

Graph data: EPA, National Rivers and Streams Assessment 2018–19
Graph data: EPA, 2022 National Lakes Assessment Fish Tissue Study
Graph data: EPA, 2020 Great Lakes Human Health Fish Fillet Tissue Study
Military installation coordinates: US Military Bases (Kaggle, sourced from government data) and U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics
Urban area boundaries: U.S. Census Bureau, 2020 Census Urban Areas (via TIGERweb)

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