Today we're releasing the EPR Water Map — an interactive tool that visualizes every public water system, permitted industrial discharge, Superfund site, and PFAS detection in the United States. All on one screen. All from EPA-verified coordinates.
This isn't an academic exercise. It's a tool built for the people who need it: residents who want to know what's upstream of their tap, local officials making infrastructure decisions, journalists investigating contamination, and anyone who believes that environmental data should be legible — not buried in spreadsheets on government websites.
What the Map Shows
Four layers of data, each drawn from federal environmental databases:
Public Water Systems (blue dots) — EPA-registered public water systems from the Safe Drinking Water Information System (SDWIS). This includes 84,814 community water systems (cities, towns, mobile home parks), 43,728 non-transient non-community systems (schools, offices, factories with their own supply), and 253,391 transient non-community systems (campgrounds, gas stations, rest areas). The commonly cited figure of ~154,000 refers to community and non-transient systems only. We include all three categories because every system has an EPA-issued PWS ID, is federally regulated, and can be contaminated.
Industrial Discharges (red squares) — major industrial facilities holding individual NPDES (National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System) permits from EPA's Integrated Compliance Information System. These are facilities that discharge liquid waste or process water as part of industrial operations — refineries, chemical plants, manufacturing facilities, and major wastewater treatment plants. We deliberately exclude construction stormwater permits, general permits, and minor facilities. The total NPDES universe exceeds 48,000 permits; we show only major industrial process discharges with EPA-verified geocoded coordinates.
Superfund Sites (yellow triangles) — sites from EPA's Superfund Enterprise Management System (SEMS). This includes sites at all stages of the Superfund process — preliminary assessment, proposed, final National Priorities List (NPL), and deleted. The commonly cited NPL count of ~1,340 refers to the final list only. We show the broader SEMS database because sites under preliminary assessment or proposed for listing can still pose active contamination risks.
PFAS Detections (purple dots) — Locations where PFAS contamination has been detected through EPA's Unregulated Contaminant Monitoring Rule (UCMR 5) program. These are the forever chemicals — the ones that don't break down, that accumulate in blood and tissue, and that are now showing up in drinking water systems across the country.
Why We Built It
All of this data is technically public. The EPA publishes it. State agencies maintain it. But "public" doesn't mean "accessible." Try finding your local water system's proximity to industrial discharge permits using EPA's databases. You'll navigate at least three different portals, download multiple CSV files, and need GIS software to make sense of any of it.
That's not transparency. That's a filing cabinet with a padlock that happens to be unlocked.
We believe environmental data should be as easy to understand as a weather map. You should be able to search your city, zoom into your neighborhood, and see — in seconds — what's in the water and what's near the water. No expertise required. No downloads. No login.
What You'll Notice
Spend five minutes with the map and patterns emerge immediately:
The Northeast Corridor is a wall of blue and red. From Boston to Washington, 50 million people share water infrastructure that dates to the 19th century. Water systems and industrial discharges overlap so densely they form a single glowing corridor. Connecticut alone has over 10,000 regulated water systems.
The Gulf Coast is an industrial gauntlet. Louisiana and Texas host the densest concentration of industrial discharge permits in the country. Along the Mississippi River and Houston Ship Channel, petrochemical facilities operate within miles of municipal water intakes serving millions.
The Great Lakes carry scars. Twenty percent of Earth's surface freshwater sits in five lakes that also border some of the most industrialized cities in America. Legacy contamination has left dozens of Superfund sites along these shores.
The Southeast has a quiet crisis. From the Chattahoochee to the Savannah River, Georgia and the Carolinas depend on surface water shared with growing industrial footprints. Rural communities face aging infrastructure and emerging PFAS contamination far from national attention.
What the Map Doesn't Do
We should be clear about what this is and what it isn't.
The map shows proximity, not causation. A red dot near a blue dot means an industrial discharge is physically close to a water system — it does not mean that discharge is contaminating that water supply. Proximity is a signal worth investigating, not a conclusion.
The map does not infer any connections between data points. Every location comes from EPA-verified coordinates. We haven't drawn lines between dots. We haven't labeled anything as "contaminated" or "safe." We've placed the data on a map and let geography speak for itself.
We've also included recharge zone overlays at higher zoom levels — the underground areas where precipitation filters into aquifers. When you see industrial activity sitting on top of a recharge zone, that's worth understanding.
How to Use It
Visit eprfoundation.org/map on any device. The map works on desktop and mobile.
On first load, you'll see a guided tour — five chapters that fly you through the most striking regions. After the tour, you enter explore mode. Search for your city. Toggle layers on and off. Click on any dot for details. Zoom in until you can see individual water systems and the facilities near them.
The data layers can be controlled independently. Turn off water systems to see only industrial discharges. Show only Superfund sites. Isolate PFAS detections. Each combination tells a different story.
What Comes Next
This is version one. We plan to add:
• Violation history for individual water systems
• Discharge volume data for NPDES permit holders
• State-level regulatory enforcement timelines
• Searchable PFAS concentration data by system
• Community-submitted reports and observations
We also plan to publish the underlying dataset as a downloadable resource for researchers, journalists, and community organizations.
The Standard
Every data point on this map comes from a federal database with verified coordinates. We haven't manufactured proximity. We haven't inferred risk. We've taken data that the government already collects and made it visible — because visibility is the first step toward accountability.
Protect people. Restore land and water. Build America right. That starts with knowing what's in the water.