Posts Tagged ‘forever chemicals’

Scientific paper based on the Forever Pollution Project

Posted by Watershed

A scientific paper based on the Forever Pollution Project on PFAS was published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology Letters. A researcher said: “We used the data to study the relationships between PFAS soil concentrations and point sources. An AI-driven predictive model was developed that enabled us to generate a map of PFAS soil concentration over the entire European soils. The map provides important insights (or better to say, warnings!) into the scale of PFAS contamination in soils in Europe, and we discuss the implications in relation to seepage water concentrations as well.”

Watershed at Labour Party Conference 2023

Posted by Watershed

Rachel Salvidge gave a speech on chemical threats to rivers and seas at the Labour Party Conference, alongside shadow environment minister Ruth Jones and Francesca Ginley from the Marine Conservation Society at an event hosted by Labour’s environment campaign, SERA.

What you need to know about PFAS

Posted by Watershed

Internazionale Magazine, the global current affairs weekly, picks up Watershed’s PFAS work from the Forever Pollution Project. The article look at the most common sources of exposure to the potential consequences for human health and the environment.

Pan-European forever pollution project

Posted by Watershed

More than 17 000 sites all over Europe are contaminated by the ‘forever chemicals’ PFAS, an exclusive, months-long investigation from 18 European newsrooms, including Watershed with the Guardian, shows. Watershed sourced multiple datasets and performed its own sampling to build up the UK picture. The Forever Pollution Project involved Le Monde (France), NDR, WDR and Süddeutsche Zeitung (Germany), RADAR Magazine and Le Scienze (Italy), The Investigative Desk and NRC (Netherlands), Knack (Belgium), Denik Referendum (Czech Republic), Politiken (Denmark), YLE (Finland), Reporters United (Greece), Latvian Radio (Latvia), Datadista (Spain), SRF (Switzerland)

Is the UK absent from the fight against PFAS pollution?

Posted by Watershed

Nations are scrambling to combat the risks posed by forever chemicals in rivers and drinking water by toughening up regulation, but the UK appears to be lagging behind. The EU is considering regulating 10,000 PFAS chemicals as single class and driving down river water quality limits. The US is set to announce a much lower acceptable limit for PFAS in drinking water. The UK has no such proposals on the table. In a second article for ENDS, Watershed explores how much we know about the UK’s PFAS problem.

The scale of PFAS ‘forever chemical’ pollution

Posted by Watershed

A major investigation focused on widespread pollution by ‘forever chemicals’ called PFAS. It launched on the front page of the Guardian and involved seven stories over three days. Working with European media partners such as Le Monde and Süddeutsche Zeitung, and using data sourced by Watershed, we created a UK and Europe-wide map showing where PFAS pollution has been found. 

We ran five further stories, one examining a PFAS manufacturer on the River Wyre where we had sampled for and found PFAS in high concentrations, a second on the PFAS legacy of a massive oil depot fire, the third was an explainer on the chemicals, the fourth examined solutions to the problem, the fifth looked at the political reaction to the stories, and a further story on PFAS was written by staff writers. Finally, we were interviewed about PFAS for the Guardian’s podcast. 

Watershed - Investigative Journalism