A Comparison of Persistent Pollutant Concentrations in Cloud and Rainwater Collected in the Adirondack Mountains
Adam M. Deitsch1*, Christopher E. Lawrence2, Paul Casson2, Sara M. Lance2, Martin M. Shafer3, John H. Offenberg4, and Melissa A. Puchalski5
Persistent pollutants, such as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), have been found in almost all sample media including natural and public water supplies, humans, animals, crops, soils, and the atmosphere. As PFAS are known to lead to negative health impacts, understanding the mechanisms that lead to exposure through atmospheric transport, chemical processing, and deposition is of great importance. The National Atmospheric Deposition Program’s (NADP) PFAS pilot wet deposition study is a great example of the benefits that can be gained from the infrastructure and samples provided by an existing network of monitoring sites. Here we present initial results from a study comparing PFAS concentrations in precipitation from the wet deposition (WD) samples collected at the base of Whiteface Mountain (WFM) (NADP National Trends Network site: NY98) with that of cloud water (CW) samples collected at the WFM summit by the University at Albany Atmospheric Sciences Research Center. In this study, PFAS concentrations from 50 NY98 samples (September 2020 – January 2022) are compared to 30 CW samples out of 193 archived samples from 2018-2021 CW seasons (June – September). These CW samples were selected to represent the variations of air mass trajectories that WFM encounters, established through cluster analysis of HYSPLIT back-trajectories for CW collection periods 2014-2021 (during which time 804 CW samples were collected). Cloud water and WD samples were analyzed for a wide range of PFAS compounds (including PFBA, PFPeA, PFHxA, PFHpA, PFOA, PFNA, PFOS, HFPO-DA, and several sulfonamides), and total summation of PFAS concentration measured in more than 50% of the CW samples exceeded 4ppt. There was also a higher relative concentration of carboxylate PFAS in CW than WD samples, which brings forth more unknowns about the chemical transformations of PFAS from point sources to sinks, and reinforces the need for a network of high-altitude, remote sampling sites to couple with surface networks.
1NOAA Cooperative Science Center in Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology (NCAS-M), University at Albany Atmospheric Sciences Research Center (ASRC)
2University at Albany Atmospheric Sciences Research Center (ASRC),
3Wisconsin State Laboratory of Hygiene, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI
4US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
5US Environmental Protection Agency, Clean Air Markets Division, Washington DC
*Corresponding author: adeitsch@albany.edu