Tampa Bay, first pass.
Sources reviewed October 13, 2026. This pilot covers Hillsborough, Pinellas and Pasco counties, with 19 researched retail water systems, 364 sourced retail observations, and 131 mapped ZIP approximations. Tampa Bay Water wholesale records are retained separately.
The usable result is a provider lookup and a plain-English view of the reports. The 100-point rating is an experimental report-screening method, with explicit gaps and a reproducible calculation. It has not been validated as a measure of personal health risk.
What we found
| Provider / location | Verified finding | How to interpret it |
|---|---|---|
| City of Tampa, main plant | 2023 PFOS range 4.0–6.9 ppt; PFOA ND–4.6 ppt. | Historical UCMR results, not a 2025 main-plant measurement. The 2025 CCR's PFAS table describes purchased water at Morris Bridge. Official monitoring tables |
| Pasco, Southeast treatment plant | 2025 PFOS average 7.27 ppt, range 6.60–8.40 ppt. | Plant-specific results. Not a concentration assigned to every Pasco household or a legal violation determination. 2025 report, page 9 |
| Temple Terrace, Whiteway / Sunningdale | July 2025 finished-water PFOS 15 ppt at both locations; PFOA 7.2 / 5.1 ppt. | Individual plant samples above comparison benchmarks. Conventional testing uses an explicitly dated 2024 CCR fallback because the linked 2025 CCR could not be verified. Official PFAS table |
| Clearwater, RO1 | PFOS 4.4 ppt in the December 3, 2025 sample. | A single plant sample. Other plants and laboratory qualifiers are preserved separately; unresolved qualifiers are excluded from scoring. 2025 report, page 6 |
| Pinellas County Utilities | Published UCMR5 rounds reported nondetects for the tested PFAS. | PFOA and PFOS reporting limits were 4 ppt. Nondetect is not zero, and the dates precede the 2025 annual report. Official PFAS results |
| Hillsborough South-Central | The 2025 CCR reports an August 2025 E. coli MCL violation. | The report describes negative follow-up sampling and completed corrective actions. Historical record, not a current boil-water advisory. 2025 report, page 12 |
| Plant City | The 2025 CCR reports a July 2025 E. coli MCL violation at one sampling location. | The city attributes it to compromised sampling equipment and reports compliant follow-up samples. 2025 report, page 4 |
| Hillsborough San Remo | TTHM single-sample maximum 160 ppb; HAA5 range maximum 120 ppb. | Compliance-average cells are blank. The report describes final TTHM determination after four quarters; no current violation is inferred. 2025 report, page 12 |
ZIP matching works, with a visible estimate
We intersected EPA service-area polygons with Census ZIP Code Tabulation Areas. The suggested provider uses 2020 housing-unit counts assigned to Census block interior points. This is more useful than ranking providers by land area or their system-wide population, but it is still an estimate of residential prevalence, not utility customer records.
Examples: 33602 maps to City of Tampa; 33609's housing-weighted suggestion is Tampa; 34655 suggests Seven Springs, with Pasco as another major candidate. Seven Springs has not yet been researched, so the site displays a pending report instead of substituting Pasco's results.
All mapped candidates remain available, including small systems. Overlapping boundaries can make shares sum above 100%; uncovered housing may use wells or missing systems. ZCTAs omit some PO-box and unique ZIP codes. Rapid growth since 2020 is a known limitation. An EPA registry audit verified all 238 fetched polygon identities as community systems; two inactive systems were excluded, leaving 236 eligible active systems.
EPA boundary documentation · Census geography service · Download matching data
The rating is ready for review, not scientific endorsement
The index screens reviewed results against documented benchmarks, gives the highest finding within each group the deduction, and uses conservative caps for reported historical health violations, exceptional lead taps and uncertain nondetect thresholds. It preserves different statistics, but cannot make unlike sample programs fully comparable. Missing key groups withhold a score.
The point penalties and caps are product choices. They do not estimate disease probability, account for every mixture, or prove whether water is healthy for a specific individual. The next rating milestone is expert review and calibration of the method, including its behavior for old data and plant-specific findings.
EPA's 2024 PFAS benchmarks are used as comparison references. Current legal compliance depends on dates and the prescribed running averages; the May 2026 changes were published as proposals. EPA PFAS rule and proposals
What needs the next pass
- Resolve missing reports for mapped providers, especially Seven Springs and smaller systems.
- Obtain newer PFAS measurements for the main Tampa plant and other older monitoring locations.
- Resolve ambiguous laboratory qualifiers, missing reporting thresholds and source-table statistics.
- Connect the current utility advisory feeds and refresh EPA/state enforcement records.
- Verify plant-to-service-area relationships before giving location-specific scores.
- Refresh the community-system registry audit and household weights periodically.
- Have a drinking-water specialist review and calibrate the 100-point rating before public promotion.
Research files
All observations (CSV) · Structured sources and notes (JSON) · ZIP/provider estimates (JSON)
Every observation includes its testing date, statistic, original source, and page when available. The first pass is a static snapshot, with no automatic update or live advisory feed.