All posts tagged: reservoir

The global reservoir of background PFAS: Implications for soil, groundwater, and regulatory strategy

The global reservoir of background PFAS: Implications for soil, groundwater, and regulatory strategy

Published by skeptic

A new study published in the Journal of Hazardous Materials provides one of the most comprehensive empirical inventories to date of background PFAS across environmental media, reframing how we understand mass distribution, cross-media transfer, and site management strategy Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are no longer viewed solely as contaminants emanating from discrete industrial sources. Increasingly, regulators and site managers are grappling with a more complex reality: PFAS are detectable at “background” locations where no direct release has occurred. Drawing on global and U.S. occurrence datasets spanning soil, groundwater, surface water (fresh and ocean), precipitation, air, biosolids, and wastewater, the authors establish a quantitative mass balance of background PFAS. Their central conclusion is both striking and consequential: surficial soil is the largest current reservoir of background PFAS globally and in the United States, surpassing groundwater, surface water, and even ocean water in estimated total mass. Reframing “background” PFAS The study adopts a pragmatic definition of background PFAS: concentrations observed in environmental media where no known direct release has occurred, even though the compounds themselves are …

LACP exhibit ‘Reservoir’ explores the visual language of loneliness

LACP exhibit ‘Reservoir’ explores the visual language of loneliness

Published by Sam Flores

The photograph is so intimate, so vulnerable, it’s painful to look at. It depicts a woman in her early 20s lying on a hospital bed twisted to the side, her wrists and ankles restrained. The black-and-white image — nearly five feet wide — is so crisp that bits of the woman’s toenail polish glimmer and the hair on her thigh appears to spark. Most pronounced: the loneliness and resignation on her face. “I was 20 or 21 then. I’d had a psychotic episode and was taken to a public hospital in Massachusetts,” says Palm Springs-based artist Lisa McCord of the self-portrait she later staged. “I’m very transparent and I wanted to share my experience afterward. It was the ‘70s. I’d tell people, in school, I’d been in a psychiatric hospital and no one wanted to hang out with me — it was a very lonely time.” McCord’s work is part of an exhibition at the Los Angeles Center of Photography addressing the idea of loneliness, now considered an epidemic in America. The exhibition, “Reservoir: Photography, …